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This chapter focusses on the lack of research about fathers raising autistic children. It begins by presenting the results in the Braunstein, Peniston, Perelman, and Cassano (2013) study, which showed that there is not much research about fathers raising autistic children compared to mothers raising autistic children. Some of the key issues in research about these fathers, such as paternal experiences of raising an autistic child, are then presented. Several areas where more research can be conducted in the future are then outlined. These suggestions are based on the limitations in the examined studies and consequently what types of research could be conducted to address these limitations. Addressing such gaps can only occur if there are strategies that can be used to recruit fathers into autism research. To this end, some of the main recommendations in Davison et al.'s study about how to recruit fathers into studies are presented.

The original contribution that this chapter makes to the field of autism spectrum research is to explain areas where there is a lack of research about fathers raising autistic children as well as potential strategies that can be used to stimulate their interest in participating in such research.

Under the impetus of federal law, each state is required to develop Guidelines by which to determine presumptive child support awards following divorce. The key federal requirement is that during the specified quadrennial reviews of each state’s Guidelines, “a state must consider economic data on the cost of raising children.” Our purpose here is to compare presumptive child support awards provided in typical state Guidelines with the actual monetary costs of raising children.

To this end, we estimate these monetary costs from government data on consumer outlays in households with children as compared with substantially similar childless households. We review and reject current methods for determining child costs: both from income equivalence methods and those offered in annual government surveys; and provide quite different results despite using the same data employed by others.

Our econometric results indicate much lower monetary costs than reported for either of the two alternatives. Since presumptive child support awards in most states rely on current methods, these findings suggest that existing award structures should be re-evaluated.

Current award structures create a financial asset resulting from the gap between presumptive awards and monetary costs for custodial parents. This factor engenders resentment by support payers since it is his or her payments that fund this asset. And this resentment harms relationships between the parents. Increased willingness of non-custodial parents to make their assessed payments is an outcome promoted when payment amounts reflect the actual monetary costs of raising children.

Recent qualitative social research about Mexican families and gender relations underlines the fact that changes in male involvement in domestic life have occurred and that significant changes in paternal responsibilities have been reported, especially among younger fathers with high educational levels and living in urban settings. Significant lags have also been detected in rural and indigenous communities regarding women’s status and the reduction of gender gaps.

On the basis of this, we analysed data from the 2014 National Time Use Survey of Mexico in order to determine whether there are significant differences in the time spent on child raising between rural and urban fathers. We also used a regression model to measure the effect of the place of residence and other socio-demographic characteristics on Mexican fathers’ level of involvement in raising their children.

Our results updated the indicators on the generational change in fathers’ collaboration in childcare and show that fathers living in urban settings are more involved – measured in time effectively spent in child raising than their rural counterparts. Furthermore, the occupations of fathers and especially that of mothers are of particular interest as factors that encourage or discourage greater male involvement in child raising.

The raising of grandchildren by grandparents is a global phenomenon, and it is common in Indonesia. This is because parents are often unable or unwilling to raise their own children. However, the debate around “grandparenting” is still limited in Indonesia. The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the experience and views of grandparents on “grandparenting.”

The methodology employed was qualitative and informed by phenomenology. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 13 grandparents who were raising their grandchildren who were under five years old. The data were analyzed using thematic content analysis.

5 main themes and 13 subthemes emerged from the analysis of the data. The themes were responses, strategies for overcoming negative responses, the grandparents’ role, the reason for raising grandchildren, and the cultural aspect of “grandparenting” in Java. All of the grandparents enjoyed their roles as grandparents. They felt that they helped fulfill their grandchildren’s physical and educational needs.

The experience of raising a grandchild can be both positive and negative, depending on the cultural aspects in the Java and the family as a whole system. Grandparents require healthcare and informal support to maintain their well-being.

This paper provides new insights into “grandparenting” closely related to social and cultural aspect within the community. Grandparents enjoy being a part of the Javanese tradition. The supportive role of grandparents in Indonesia is important. However, older adults need to balance the role of “grandparenting” and rest time so that they remain healthy and happy.

In the field of autism spectrum research, there has been a tendency to examine autistics without intellectual disabilities. This focus has come at the expense of examining their peers with intellectual disabilities, who are generally regarded as needing more assistance due to more complex support needs. This chapter begins by defining intellectual disability, followed by an examination of the literature about the prevalence of intellectual disability in the autistic population. The results from the American Government's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Autism and Developmental Monitoring (ADDM) Network about the proportion of autistics with intellectual disabilities are then outlined. Following this, the results from studies about the proportion of autistics with intellectual disabilities are presented. The goal of this section is to show that despite there being evidence that about a quarter of the autistic population have an intellectual disability, this cohort is underrepresented within research about the autism spectrum. Two reasons for this discrepancy are then outlined. This chapter concludes with three suggestions for where more research can be conducted into autistics who have an intellectual disability.

The original contribution that this chapter makes to the field of autism research is to highlight the lack of literature about members of the autistic community who have an intellectual disability as well as presenting several reasons for this lack of research and directions for research in the future.

The focus of scientific research on the parental well-being has been mainly placed on parents of pre-school children. However, recent findings indicated that parents of pre-school children show lower levels of depression and higher levels of self-efficacy and self-esteem, compared to parents of older children. The purpose of this paper is to establish to what extent the parent-adolescent relationship, coping strategies and co-parent relationship, influences the parental well-being.

This study was conducted to establish to what extent the parent-adolescent relationship, coping strategies and co-parent relationship, influences the parental well-being of parents in a sample of 310 Dutch parents with children aged 12-18. Participants filled out questionnaires on the parental well-being and coping. Path analysis using a structural equation model (SEM) was performed.

The SEM revealed that active problem-focused coping strategies were predictive of higher levels of parenting-related well-being. The satisfaction of the relationship with the co-parent predicted both higher levels of parenting- and individual-related well-being. Lower levels of parenting-related well-being were significantly related to more problems in the parent-adolescent relationship, which, in turn, were related to decreased individual-related well-being.

Future studies on the influence of coping strategies and the co-parent relationship satisfaction are recommended to create greater understanding of the underlying mechanisms and their positive effect on the parental well-being.

This study could lead to improvements in the support system for parents raising adolescents.

The present study shows that the parent-child relationship is an important predictive factor in parental well-being. This study also shows that the more highly parents scored on co-parent relationship satisfaction, the less they saw parenting as a burden and the more they felt they had the parenting skills to control the behavior of their child.

Community support is an integral aspect of health and well-being for Indigenous peoples. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the valuable role of community support for Indigenous women specifically, who experience reproductive health disparities at alarming rates. This study helps fill an important gap in Indigenous scholarship by centering the resilience of women and Indigenous tribes and by using a framework that is consistent with Indigenous holistic views of health.

The data for this paper was collected as part of a larger study exploring the reproductive health experiences of a state-recognized Gulf Coast tribe. A total of 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who identify as women and as members of this tribe using qualitative descriptive methodology. This method is recommended for research with Indigenous communities. A community advisory board with representatives from this tribe provided feedback throughout the project.

Themes expressed by participants included Community Closeness and Support; Community Support in Raising Children; Informal Adoption Common; and Community Values of Mutual Aid and Self-Sufficiency. The findings support current literature noting the value of generational and communal ties for Indigenous peoples. Implications of this research include the need to value and support community networks in programs serving tribes, in addition to meaningfully including Indigenous communities in developing interventions.

This paper centers Indigenous women’s resilience, approaches the health and well-being of Indigenous tribes holistically and helps to fill an important gap in literature describing informal adoption (outside the legal system) in state-recognized Indigenous communities.

This chapter presents an exploratory study of specific experiences among Central Asian grandparents who adopt and raise their firstborn grandchild as their own youngest child. The practice, referred to as ‘nebere aluu’, is deemed an ethnonational tradition of the Kyrgyz and Kazakh people and appears to be widely accepted among men and women, young and old. Drawing on in-depth interviews with grandparents themselves, I describe this phenomenon as situated within and dynamically responding to the shifting social, economic and political context of contemporary Central Asia. Drastic transformations in the everyday lives, while destabilizing and disorienting, may have supplanted nebere aluu with unique significance. Contemporary expressions of nebere aluu point to it being a complex social system of intergenerational reciprocal care, continuity and responsibility that provides a meaningful space for reconciling conflicting ideas about family, marriage, love and child-rearing. This discursive space is open for debate and negotiations and raises important questions about power and gender politics inherent to it.

Purpose – Despite the rising number of unmarried and/or divorced parents, negative stereotypes of single parents are still prevalent. The current study aims to explore attitudes toward single mothers (choice vs circumstance) and personal willingness to become single parents in the future.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The current study used a 10-item Likert scale inventory to assess 230 female respondents’ attitudes toward fictitious single mothers; five open-ended questions explored advantages/challenges faced by each mother, and a single-item Likert scale assessed willingness to become a single mother by choice.

Findings – Although young adults (18–25 years) reported more positivity toward single mothers compared to adults (26–79 years), both groups were unwilling to become single mothers by choice. Qualitative findings suggested participants identified more advantages associated with being a single mother by choice (as compared to by circumstance).

Research Limitations/Implications – The majority of the sample consisted of “young adults” (undergraduates) ages 18–25, while the “adult” sample combined multiple generations ages 26–79, resulting in an unbalanced age distribution between groups.

Originality/Value – Few studies have acknowledged the existence of single mothers by choice; the current research provided supporting evidence that attitudes toward single mothers are increasingly more positive among Millennials despite unwillingness to become a single mother by choice in the future.