FIIT - Families In It TogetherPersonnel Description Families In It Together is an ongoing research project involving
African American mothers, their children and the rural communities
where they live in the state of Georgia. This study, which started
in 1993 with a group of 150 single mothers and their children, takes
a look at how African American kids grow into successful young adults.
The participating families live in small towns and communities in
which poverty rates are among the highest in the nation and unemployment
rates are above the national average. Many of them live under conditions
of severe, chronic environmental stress that has the potential to
take a significant toll on their children. However, instead of focusing
on what causes problems for children raised in these circumstances,
this study examines the individual, family and community factors
that help them achieve academic competence, social competence and
positive psychological adjustment. The project focuses on four main questions: • What kinds of factors encourage success in the lives of African American children living in rural, single-parent homes? • What role do friends play in the development of a child’s racial identity, academic achievement and lifestyle choices? • How do a child’s successes and failures influence the behavior and emotional adjustment of other people who are close to them? For example, how are mothers or other family members affected by what happens in their children’s lives? How are friends affected? • How do classroom experiences facilitate positive development in African American children? Some Preliminary Results • In this study, maternal education and family financial resources impact mothers’ psychological functioning – self-esteem, optimism and degree of depressive symptoms – which contributes to more positive personal outlooks. These results emerged in a sample of single mothers, most of whom are living in poverty in communities with limited job opportunities. In turn, mothers with a positive personal outlook are more likely to use parenting practices characterized by involved vigilance and reciprocal, open communication. Those parenting practices are linked to children’s self-regulation, which in turn is associated across time with child competence. These results support the idea that supportive home environments provide a context that fosters positive child development, even in situations where maternal resources are less than optimal. Brody, Murry, Kim & Brown (2002) • Parenting processes featuring high levels of involvement, support and monitoring and classrooms characterized by high levels of organization, rule clarity and student involvement contribute to African American children’s ability to regulate their own behavior, and self-regulation facilitates positive psychological adjustment. Organized and predictable home and school environments in which children are valued and their participation in the rules and procedures that govern their behavior is solicited contribute to the development and maintenance of self-regulatory skills. Brody, Dorsey, Forehand & Armistead (2002) • Our data also support the notion that classroom processes can serve a protective-stabilizing function when parenting processes are compromised, and vice versa. That is, good experiences at school and/or competent parenting processes are associated with more self-regulation, fewer externalizing problems and fewer depressive symptoms in the children. These results illustrate that specific processes functioning in specific contexts are associated with “better-than-expected” adjustment among children living under high-risk conditions. Brody, Dorsey, Forehand & Armistead (2002) • Data from this project also demonstrate that older siblings make important contributions to younger siblings’ competence in both direct and indirect ways. (1) Older sibling competence at Wave 1 was linked with positive changes in mothers’ psychological functioning from Wave 1 to Wave 2; (2) Mothers’ psychological functioning at Wave 2 forecast their use of supportive parenting practices with the younger sibling at Wave 3; and (3) older sibling competence at Wave 2 and mothers’ supportive parenting at Wave 3 were both linked with changes in younger sibling self-regulation at Wave 3 and younger sibling competence at Wave 4. Brody, Kim, Murry & Brown (2003) Timeline FIIT is in the eighth wave of data collection. Current funding will support one more wave of data collection, which will begin in the Fall of 2004 and continue through the Spring of 2005. Nearly one hundred families from the original sample have participated in the project continuously, providing longitudinal data on their children from middle childhood through adolescence. Links |
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