Family Transitions and Children's Sibling Relationships

描述(由申请人提供)： 研究事业奖(K02)将支持对幼儿家庭关系以及早期社会和情感发展的5年方案研究。申请人以前在家庭关系和复杂家庭制度方面的经验和专业知识使其在研究婴儿兄弟姐妹出生后过渡期间家庭生活和子女适应方面的变化方面处于独特的地位。很少有研究考察幼儿生命中这一重要的发展阶段，这将是第一次大规模研究，旨在调查在过渡到兄弟姐妹身份过程中，个人发展和家庭关系中变化轨迹的复杂相互关系。制度环境对研究计划提供了强有力的支持，目前已有大量资源到位。申请者最近资助的NICHD研究--“兄弟姐妹出生后的家庭过渡”将是颁奖期间的主要重点。在这项研究中，对200个家庭进行了纵向跟踪，从产前开始，然后在兄弟姐妹出生后1、4、8和12个月时进行跟踪，以检查家庭关系的变化(如婚姻、亲子关系)、兄弟姐妹对婴儿兄弟姐妹的到来的适应情况、安全的婴儿-父母依恋的发展以及兄弟姐妹关系的早期起源。这项工作的主要目的之一是确定个人和家庭功能随时间的不同变化轨迹，并检查父母、孩子的个人特征和背景特征(例如，工作、社会支持、婚姻)作为不同变化轨迹的产前预测因子。这项研究的主要优势之一是将父亲纳入研究计划的各个方面。关于申请者的学习和职业成长，已经概述了几个不同的方向，包括(1)潜在的抑郁、社会关系和情绪表达的生物过程；(2)心理发展理论及其与兄弟姐妹关系的关系；(3)成年抑郁症的性别差异；以及(4)幼儿时期出现的早期自我调节。候选人还将获得多变量纵向数据统计分析方面的高级培训，包括分层线性建模。该奖项的最终目标是在不断变化的家庭关系的背景下，发展一系列关于幼儿社会情感发展的方案研究，最终将有助于理解生物学和复杂的家庭系统之间的相互作用如何影响幼儿、幼儿和学龄前儿童的社会和情感发展。这项研究的结果将通过确定年龄较大的儿童适应婴儿兄弟姐妹的到来的各种方式，预测随着时间的推移不同适应模式的生物和社会因素，以及这些变化对随后几年儿童和家庭功能的影响，为未来的预防和干预工作提供信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A Research Career Award (K02) would support 5 years of programmatic research into young children's family relationships and early social and emotional development. The applicant's prior experience and expertise in family relationships and complex family systems places the applicant in a unique position for studying the changes that occur in family life and children's adjustment during the transition period following the birth of a baby sibling. Few studies have examined this important developmental period in the young child's life and this will be the first large-scale study designed to investigate the complex interrelations of change trajectories in individual development and family relationships across the transition to siblinghood. The institutional environment is strongly supportive of the research program and extensive resources are currently in place. The applicant's recently funded NICHD study, "Family Transitions following the Birth of a Sibling" will be the primary focus of the award period. In this study 200 families are followed longitudinally beginning in the prenatal period and then at 1, 4, 8, and 12 months after the sibling's birth in order to examine changes in family relationships (e.g., marital, parent-child), the older sibling's adjustment to the arrival of a baby sibling, the development of secure infant-parent attachments, and the early origins of the sibling relationship. One of the primary aims of this work is to identify different change trajectories over time in individual and family functioning and to examine personal characteristics of the parents, the children, and contextual characteristics (e.g., work, social support, marital) as prenatal predictors of different change trajectories. One of the major strengths of this study is the inclusion of fathers in every aspect of the research program. Several different directions have been outlined with respect to the applicant's learning and professional growth, including an understanding of (1) the biological processes underlying depression, social relationships, and emotional expression; (2) theory of mind development and its relation with sibling relationships; (3) gender differences in adult depression, and (4) the emergence of early self regulation in toddlerhood. The candidate will also acquire advanced training in statistical analyses for multivariate longitudinal data including hierarchical linear modeling. The ultimate goal of this Award is to develop a programmatic line of research on young children's socioemotional development in the context of changing family relationships that will eventually contribute to an understanding of how the interplay between biology and complex family systems affects children's social and emotional development in the infant, toddler, and preschool years. Findings from this research will inform future prevention and intervention efforts by identifying the various ways older children adjust to the arrival of a baby sibling, the biological and social factors that predict different patterns of adjustment over time, and the consequences these changes have for children and family functioning in subsequent years.