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CBS 11: Marital Tension Disturbs The Family Bond

Spouses admit that when conflict and tension arise between one another, their relationships with their children suffer.

SMU, Kouros, Marital Conflict, CBS

Local CBS 11 News has covered the research of psychology expert Chrystyna Kouros, assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.

Chrystyna Kouros focuses on understanding depressive symptoms and depression in the context of family stress.

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To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Chrystyna Kouros in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

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One line of her research focuses on the etiology, maintenance, and progression of child and adolescent depression, and how symptoms change over time. She has a particular interest in the effects of children’s exposure to everyday marital conflict and parental psychopathology.

CBS 11 reviewed the research of Chyrstyna Kouros concerning how marital disputes can damage the relationship between parent and child in the article “Study: Marital Tension Disturbs The Family Bond,” which published Aug. 29.

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EXCERPT:

By CBS 11
A new study from researchers at Southern Methodist Universityfound that arguments between couples may negatively impact bonds between children and parents.

Researchers discovered that when parents reported higher tension levels or conflict in their marriage, the interaction with their child, during that time, was also greatly strained. This was more commonly experienced in fathers, who pushed greater amounts of stress onto relationships in family life, according to the study.
Overall mothers were more likely to compartmentalize issues than fathers in a bad marriage.

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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U.S News: Parents’ Fights May Strain Bonds With Their Kids

Spouses admit that when conflict and tension arise between one another, their relationships with their children suffer.

Book a live interview

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To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Chrystyna Kouros in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

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The world recognized publisher of news and information, U.S News, has covered the research of psychology expert Chrystyna Kouros, assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.

Chrystyna Kouros focuses on understanding depressive symptoms and depression in the context of family stress.

One line of her research focuses on the etiology, maintenance, and progression of child and adolescent depression, and how symptoms change over time. She has a particular interest in the effects of children’s exposure to everyday marital conflict and parental psychopathology.

U.S. News reporter Robert Preidt explains that the repercussion of a marital dispute can be a damaged relationship between parents and their children in his article “Parents’ Fights May Strain Bonds With Their Kids,” which published Aug. 28.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Robert Preidt
U.S News
Arguments between parents may damage their relationships with their children, a new study indicates.

Parents in more than 200 families were asked to make daily diary entries for 15 days. At the end of each day, mothers and fathers rated the quality of their marriage and their relationship with their children.

On days when parents reported conflict and tension in their marriage, their dealings with their children were also strained, according to the study recently published in the Journal of Family Psychology.

However, there were notable differences between mothers and fathers. Marital conflict affected mothers’ relationships with their children for just one day.

“In fact, in that situation, moms appeared to compensate for their marital tension. Poor marital quality actually predicted an improvement in the relationship between the mom and the child. So, the first day’s adverse spillover is short-lived for moms,” study author Chrystyna Kouros, an assistant professor in the psychology department at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, said in a university news release.

It was a different story with fathers.

Read the full story.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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Culture, Society & Family Health & Medicine Mind & Brain

Marital tension between mom and dad can harm each parent’s bond with child, study finds

Dads, in particular, let conflict adversely impact relationships with children, while moms compartmentalize marital conflict after first day.

Chrystyna Kouros, SMU, marital relationships

Children suffer consequences, too, when mom and dad argue or have tension in their relationship, experts warn.

Dads, in particular, let the negative emotions and tension from their marriage spill over and harm the bond they have with their child, says a new study’s lead author, psychologist Chrystyna D. Kouros, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The findings drive home the conclusion that the quality of a marriage is closely tied to each parent’s bond with their child, Kouros said.

The findings are based on data provided by 203 families, where family members completed daily diary entries for 15 days. Moms and dads rated the quality of their marriage and their relationship with their child at the end of each day.

The authors found that when parents reported tension and conflict in their marriage, simultaneously that day’s interactions with their child were peppered with tension and conflict.

Even so, distinct differences also were identified in moms and dads.

In situations where the quality of the marriage was low, moms appeared to compartmentalize the problems they were having in their marriage by the next day.

“In fact, in that situation, moms appeared to compensate for their marital tension,” Kouros said. “Poor marital quality actually predicted an improvement in the relationship between the mom and the child. So, the first day’s adverse spillover is short lived for moms.”

That was not the case for dads, the researchers found.

“In families where the mom was showing signs of depression, dads on the other hand let the marital tension spill over, with the result being poorer interactions with their child, even on the next day,” she said.

Couple’s marriage is a hub or anchor for the entire family
Marriage quality, the authors concluded, affects the whole family, said Kouros, an assistant professor in SMU’s SMU Department of Psychology.

“We see from the findings that the marriage is a hub relationship for the family,” she said. “The quality of that relationship spills over into each parent’s interactions with the child. So if mom and dad are fighting, it will show up initially — and in some cases on the second day — in a poorer quality relationship with their kids.”

The authors reported their findings in the scientific article “Spillover between marital quality and parent-child relationship quality: Parental depressive symptoms as moderators,” published recently in the Journal of Family Psychology.

Co-authors of the research were Lauren M. Papp, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Marcie C. Goeke-Morey, The Catholic University of America, and E. Mark Cummings, University of Notre Dame.

The research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health. — Margaret Allen

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Mommy blog: Kids with intellectual disability can learn to read — and moms say, “We know!”

“It’s certainly no shocker that our kids are capable of reading. More than anyone, we know how bright they are.” — Ellen Seidman

Popular mommy blogger Ellen Seidman, whose blog “Lovethatmax” focuses on issues related to children identified with a disability, blogged about new SMU education reading research. Led by SMU reading expert Jill Allor, the study’s findings offer hope for thousands of children identified with intellectual disability or low IQ who have very little, if any, reading ability.

The four-year, pioneering study is the first large-scale longitudinal study of its kind to demonstrate the reading potential of students with intellectual disability or low IQ, said lead author Jill H. Allor, principal investigator of the study, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The current study also demonstrates the effectiveness of a teaching method that’s scientifically based for use with children identified with intellectual disability or low IQ, said Allor, a reading researcher whose expertise is reading acquisition.

Coauthors included Patricia Mathes, TI Endowed Chair in Evidence-Based Education and a professor in the Simmons School.

Mathes and Allor, former special education teachers, developed the study’s reading program after research into how children with dyslexia and other learning problems learn to read. The program was previously validated with struggling readers without intellectual disability or low IQ.

The research will continue under a new $1.5 million U.S. Department of Education grant, also led by Allor, principal investigator.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Ellen Seidman
Love that Max
It’s not every day that I read about a study in the news and I get all emotional. But one about teaching reading to kids with special needs: yes. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, it found that students with intellectual disability who participated in a four-year program with intensive, specialized instruction learned to read at a first-grade level or higher. The kids, who had Down syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, Williams syndrome and physical disabilities, started the study around age 7.

I’m well aware that it’s possible for kids with ID to learn to read because Max is reading, and making good progress. Still, it’s thrilling to see proof-positive research—and it’s surely going to inspire many parents out there. The study was done at Southern Methodist University and involved two verbal groups of children; one group of 76 received reading intervention, and the other group of 65 kids got the usual instructional method of teaching reading.

Kids in the intervention group were taught reading 40 to 50 minutes a day in small settings, with a ratio of four students per teacher. They used a program developed by two former special education teachers for struggling readers with average IQs called Early Interventions in Reading (here’s a PDF about it). The program helps with letter knowledge and sounds, recognizing syllables and other phonological awareness, sounding out and sight words. Kids repeatedly read in unison, paired up with teachers, and read independently, too. Other activities touched on comprehension and listening.

Read the full story.

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Scientific American: How your smartphone messes with your brain — and your sleep

Scientific American science blogger Josh Fischman drew on the sleep expertise of SMU Assistant Professor of Chemistry Brian D. Zoltowski to explain how artificial light from our smartphones and other digital devices causes sleep deprivation. His blog article, “How your smartphone messes with your brain — and your sleep,” published May 20 and has been heavily shared through social media.

Zoltowski’s lab at SMU studies one of the many proteins involved in an organism’s circadian clocks. Called a photoreceptor, the protein responds to light to predict time of day and season by measuring day length.

The circadian clock is an internal biological mechanism that responds to light, darkness and temperature in a natural 24-hour biological cycle. The clock synchronizes body systems with the environment to regulate everything from sleep patterns and hunger in humans to growth patterns and flowering in plants.

“Our research focuses on understanding the chemical basis for how organisms perceive their surroundings and use light as an environmental cue to regulate growth and development,” Zoltowski says.

Zoltowski and the American Chemical Society created a video explaining the light-sleep deprivation relationship.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Josh Fischman
Scientific American
It’s not the Angry Birds, streaming videos, emails from your boss, or your Facebook updates that disturb your sleep when you spend an evening staring at your smartphone or tablet. OK, the apps can keep you glued to your screen until the wee hours, and that doesn’t help. But it is the specific type of light from that screen that is throwing off your natural sleep-wake cycles, even after you power down. In a new video from Reactions: Everyday Chemistry, a sleep researcher explains the eerie power of blue light over your brain.

Cells at the back of your eyes pick up particular light wavelengths and, with a light-sensitive protein called melanopsin, signal the brain’s master clock, which controls the body’s circadian rhythms. Blue light, which in nature is most abundant in the morning, tells you to get up and get moving. Red light is more common at dusk and it slows you down. Now, guess what kind of light is streaming from that little screen in your hand at 11:59 P.M.? “Your iPad, your phone, your computer emit large quantities of blue light,” says sleep researcher and chemist Brian Zoltowski of Southern Methodist University

Read the full story.