This investigation examined the relationships between parental involvement, peer-initiated climates, and perfectionism to goal orientation as well as children's enjoyment and the intention to continue playing sport in youth sport. Participants were 188 athletes, 100 boys (M = 12.06, SD = 1.06) and 88 girls (M = 12.18, SD = .73). The athletes completed the TEOSQ, Sport MPS, PIAS, and the PeerMCYSQ. Parental support and peer task environment was related to girls' and boy's task orientation. For boys, personal standards, parental pressure, and fewer concerns over mistakes, also were related to task orientation. Ego orientation was related to peer-initiated ego and task climates, for the boys. For the girls, higher personal standard was the only variable related to ego orientation. For enjoyment, task orientation was the strongest predictor for the girls and the only predictor for the boys for enjoyment. The fewer concerns girls had over mistakes the more enjoyment they reported. For girls and boys, intention to continue playing next season was predicted only by enjoyment. However, results were varied when intention to play next year was examined. For boys, no predictors were discovered whereas for girls, higher levels of enjoyment and task orientation, and lower levels of parental …

Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) tend to experience social functioning problems, with girls more likely to encounter peer rejection than boys. The present study investigated gender differences in child, parent, and teacher perceptions of social functioning among ADHD and control children. Participants included 119 children (ages 6-11) and their parents. Sixty-one children were previously diagnosed with ADHD. Parents, teachers, and children completed measures assessing the child's social functioning. The results indicate that the relationship between ADHD status and social functioning differs as a function of rater. Teachers and parents reported that ADHD children had lower social functioning than controls, while ADHD and control children reported similar levels of social functioning. Gender differences were found on the child self-report, with girls reporting lower social functioning than boys. In ADHD children the relationship between social functioning and comorbid depression differed as a function of rater. Specifically, among ADHD children with depression, parents rated children as having lower social functioning than did children or teachers. In ADHD children without comorbid depression, however, there were no rater differences. Additionally, no rater differences in social functioning were found between ADHD children with and without a comorbid psychiatric condition. Overall, the results of the …

An understanding of factors that enhance empathic parenting behaviors is of considerable importance to the study of child development and to the development of parenting interventions to promote child adjustment. Moreover, gaining a better understanding of the factors that predict empathic parenting with older children is of interest since most research examining parental empathy focuses on infants. These were the goals of the current study. Guided by Belsky's 1984 process model of the determinants of parenting that impact child development, an expanded model of the determinants of parenting is proposed that includes various parent, child, and contextual factors of influence. Using data from a community sample, a partial least squares path analysis approach was employed to test the model's strength in predicting empathically attuned parenting with children ages 5 to 10 years and, ultimately, the child's psychoemotional functioning. Results support the expanded model; however, a reduced model was found to be superior and revealed unique relationships between the determinants of parenting. Specifically, a parent's psychoemotional functioning and childrearing beliefs and attitudes were found to be critical to the parent's ability to engage in empathic parenting behaviors. Other parent factors such as the parent's developmental history of abuse, maladaptive personality traits, …