This bilingual (English and Spanish) multimedia outreach program is designed to support military families with children between the ages of two and five who are experiencing deployment, multiple deployments, or a parent's return home changed due to a combat-related injury. Contents include: Materials: -Magazine for Parents and Caregivers (PDF) -Children's Poster (PDF) -Facilitator Guide (PDF) […]
In this meta-analytic study, the authors examined the efficacy of marriage and relationship education (MRE) on 2 common outcomes: relationship quality and communication skills. A thorough search produced 86 codable reports that yielded 117 studies and more than 500 effect sizes. The effect sizes for relationship quality for experimental studies ranged from d = .30 […]
Deployment, and the family separation that accompanies it, are defining experiences of military life. Researchers have studied family separation during deployment in relation to stress, well-being, child behavior problems, declines in marital satisfaction, and attitudes toward reenlistment. When families are unable to successfully adapt to separation, the performance of military members may be undermined. Research […]
This article discusses the rising median age of first marriages from the 1890s to the present: almost 26 for women and almost 28 for men. Reasons people are marrying later are explored, and results from a Gallup telephone poll of about 500 adults are cited that indicate the ideal marrying age has increased to 25 […]
This fact sheet discusses the unique stress a couple feels when a spouse is sent on a combat deployment, tips for writing letters to stay in touch, and coping strategies. Spouses are urged to write on a daily basis and to share difficult situations and problems, develop a daily routine and stick with it, place […]
This brief explores the complications involved in computing the divorce rate in the United States. Reasons for the complications include the federal government’s decision to stop collecting divorce data from States in 1996 and the reliance on the National Center for Health Statistics to publish an annual divorce rate, although several States (including California) do […]
In the last fifteen years, M. Gary Neuman, marital therapist and architect of the Sandcastles Divorce Therapy Program, has helped thousands of couples in crisis. Couples who fight. Who’ve grown apart. Who are stuck in relationships that run more on routine and rancor than love and understanding. What he’s found is that, contrary to popular […]
This research links residence with biological and nonbiological married and unmarried parents to the cognitive achievement and behavioral problems of children aged 3-12, controlling for factors that make such families different. The data were drawn from the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Achievement differences were not associated with father […]
Divorce is a powerful force in contemporary American family life. Current estimates suggest that between 43 and 50 percent of first-time marriages will end in divorce. Consequently, more than one million U.S. children experience parental divorce each year. The growing number of divorces has profound implications for children, mothers, fathers, and society. The consequences of […]
Most people believe they are good listeners without considering the important differences between hearing and listening. The ability to hear is typically innate, but the ability to listen well is a skill that must be developed and practiced. Listening means paying attention and making a conscious effort to process what you hear. It is one […]