Note from Nayda

This is the third year (third quarterly issue) of our series of research newsletters for use in your programs. We all appreciate your input and suggestions. We are very happy that our research newsletter has been so useful. For your convenience, the name of each contributor is linked to their e-mail address.

Thank-you to all faculty who contributed this issue: Rose Barnett, Elizabeth Bolton, Suzanna Smith, Jo Turner, and Carolyn Wilken .

--Dr. Nayda I. Torres , Professor and Chair, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences

The Relationship Between Self-Worth and Financial Beliefs, Behavior, and Satisfaction

Summary

The authors sought to replicate a study by T. K. Hira and O. M. Mugenda using a different audience with slightly different definitions. Their goals were to determine if conclusions made in earlier research could be verified with similar methodology and a different sample; and to determine if the core findings would be consistent and reliable. Was there really a relationship between self-worth (self-esteem) and financial beliefs, behaviors and satisfaction?

The authors sought to determine if there was a difference in self-worth based on income, age, marital status or gender.  Both studies found that respondents with higher education had higher self-worth.  Those with full-time employment had higher self-worth.  In addition self-worth (self-esteem) was related to financial behaviors, confidence, satisfaction, stressors, and certain demographic variables.   Respondents who exhibited better financial behaviors, more financial confidence, those who were more satisfied with their financial situation, and those who exhibited fewer stressor events tended to score higher in terms of self-esteem. Marital status, age, or gender did not show an impact on self-worth.  To summarize a positive and significant link was found in both studies between self-worth (self-esteem) and financial beliefs, financial satisfaction, and education.   Income and education also was positively linked with self-worth.

Implications for Extension Programming

What does this have to do with Extension programming?   When working with Extension audiences on money management issues, the findings suggest that we target programs to a specific audience, incorporate concepts related to self-worth assessment and interpretation of the assessment into our money management programs. Educational activities can be targeted to groups with low self-esteem, i.e. groups with low paying or no jobs and lower levels of education. Other programs may be targeted to groups with high self-esteem.

Strengthen our educational programs by including activities on how to identify values and goals. Also include activities on setting group or family goals and developing a spending plan to reach the goals.

^1"A Subsequent Study of The Relationship Between Self-worth and Financial Beliefs, Behaviors and Satisfaction" a study by John W. Grable, and So-Hyun Joo in The Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences. Vol 93 Issue 5. 2001.  

-- Dr. Jo Turner, CFP, Professor, Family and Consumer Economics

Being "Business-Like" in a Nonprofit Organization

Being "Business-Like" in a Nonprofit Organization: A Grounded and Inductive Typology. Raymond Dart. June, 2004. Nonprofit and Volunteer Sector Quarterly.
Vol. 33, No. 2, June 2004, 290 - 310.

This article is a report of a case study of one nonprofit organization. There are several reasons it was chosen for review. The concepts described reflect aspects that will be covered in the in-service training delivered by Focus Group 5.5 Nonprofit Organizations, Leadership and Volunteer Development and this article supports the goals of this Extension focus team 5.5.   A second reason is that the typology described can be useful in Extension county offices for general programming guidelines.   Indeed many county offices currently employ these concepts although not necessarily by the same name.   In brief, this article appears to be highly relevant for Extension faculty (many of whom work with nonprofit organizations) and Extension programming in general.  Another compelling reason for reviewing this article is that it deals with nonprofit organizations as business enterprises as well as philanthropic entities.  This is a recurring theme in both the graduate and the undergraduate nonprofit courses in Family, Youth and Community Sciences. 

A business-like nonprofit setting is examined in four categories:  program goals, program service delivery, organizational management and organizational rhetoric. The author makes a distinction between nonprofit and business-like activities.  Nonprofit is characterized by pro-social and altruistic values and goals and less with the means to achieve these goals.  On the other hand, a business-like activity is characterized by concern for the profit motive, the organizational structure and decision-making activities. 

Qualitative data collection was undertaken at a service site named Community Service Organization (CSO) that provided counseling and interpersonal social support to low-income families and individuals. It also provided a fee-based for-profit program aimed at employee assistance that was staffed by the organization's social work staff.  The clientele of the CSO were persons facing some kind of personal or financial crisis. Because of the loss of government funding, the CSO had various cut backs in programs and staff which resulted in restructuring the program to focus on credit counseling. The case study showed evidence of business-like activity in terms of goals, service delivery, management, and rhetoric. In summary, a change in funding necessitated a change in the way the nonprofit managed its goals, resources and expected outcomes.  The service delivery was cut to a minimum type of program that resulted in a shorter wait for service thus allowing more people to be served.  Long waits for clients were eliminated as well as some types of service.  

The goals were framed so that they were based on revenue generation or profit.  In other words, they had to produce to survive as an organization.   The goals were framed to be congruent with the pro-social purpose of the organization.  Thus there was no inconsistency between the goal of revenue generation and the social purpose of the organization.  The service delivery also acquired a business approach to planning.   The number of persons served increased dramatically by focusing on one kind of financial counseling rather than trying to solve a broad array of financial problems.  The financial counselors became specialists rather than generalists in that they spent their time on just one aspect of the client's financial crisis. Time was a critical resource and the counselors sought to use it parsimoniously and wisely.  

In terms of management, the focus changed from a "good intentions approach" typical of traditional nonprofit managers to a "results-focused approach" which considered resources and outcomes. The view was that managers were in charge of a business center.  If it failed everyone lost their job; if it succeeded, they continued to be employed. With the new approach to goals, planning and management, the organizational rhetoric changed as well to reflect a more business-like approach for the nonprofit organization. 

The relevance of this article is that it shows that one nonprofit organization changed its traditional operating procedures and values in order to survive.  Doing "good" in the community was no longer enough to insure the organization's survival.   Organizations must operate efficiently and responsibly in order to serve the client and the community from which it draws its support.

-- Dr. Elizabeth B. Bolton, Professor, Community Development

The Benefits of Siblings on Social and Interpersonal Skills

Parents who are considering having a second child may think that their first-born would benefit from having a sibling. New research provides evidence that children do gain in some ways from having a brother or sister. In other ways children do better as an only child.

Douglas Downey and Dennis Condron of the Ohio State University conducted a study of over 20,000 kindergartners and reported their findings in the May 2004 issue of Journal of Marriage and Family. Their research was different from earlier studies in that it looked at how having siblings affected social and interpersonal communication skills. They asked whether children with more siblings have better social and interpersonal skills than children with fewer siblings.

Most previous research on the effects of siblings has focused on academic achievements. These studies looked at how parental resources are affected by having more than one child. Resources include types of home, necessities of life, objects like books and music, personal attention and teaching from a parent, and opportunities to do things outside the home. Theoretically at least, the more siblings there are, the fewer resources parents have to spread across the siblings. This may impact educational outcomes, such as test scores and years of schooling achieved, as parents have less time and money to devote to supporting, directly and indirectly, children's school work. In fact, research shows that children "do better in school and on cognitive tests when they have fewer versus many siblings" (p. 334).

However, children may get something out of their relationships with brothers and sisters that hasn't been measured in previous research. Through cooperative play, helping and teaching younger siblings, and negotiating and resolving conflicts, siblings have opportunities to refine their communication skills.

The data provided for this study came from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study -- Kindergarten class of 1998-1999. Information was collected from parents, teachers, and the children near the end of the kindergarten year, when children were on average 6 years old. The sample was 55% White, 18% Hispanic, 15% Black, 6% Asian, and 5% another race. Seventeen percent of the sample had no siblings; 42% had one sibling and 27% had two; 10% had 3 and 5% more.

Measures of social and interpersonal skills were based on teachers' ratings of "children's ability to form and maintain friendships, get along with people who are different, comfort or help other children, express feelings, ideas, and opinions in a positive way, and show sensitivity to the feelings of others" (p. 338). Teachers also rated self-control, and externalizing problem behaviors (arguing, fighting, disruptions). Proficiency on math and reading were measured through structured assessments.

This study showed that only children or children with only one sibling outperformed children from larger families on math and reading standardized tests. However, teachers rated children with siblings as having better interpersonal skills than those without siblings. Teachers also rated children with siblings as having fewer externalizing problem behaviors and more self-control. In summary, children with siblings seem to have better social and interpersonal skills than children without siblings.

For the most part, the main difference seems to be children with no siblings versus those with any siblings. However, having more than two siblings does not make a child even better at getting along with others. There was no improvement in social skills in families with more than three children. The authors suggested that in larger families, parents have less time to supervise children, while there are by virtue of numbers of people, more sibling interactions and greater potential for conflict. Parental supervision gives children a chance to learn effective social skills. In larger families where parents are unavailable, unsupervised sibling interactions may end up in spats, not opportunities to develop social skills.

The authors caution that the differences between only children and those with siblings are statistically modest. They do not believe that parents with only one child should decide to have another child to improve their first-born's interpersonal skills. However, they do suggest that children may miss out on learning how to get along with others when they do not have a sibling. It is safe to say that this is one piece of information parents would need to take into account in making such decisions. In addition, parents who wish to have only one child for whatever reasons -- financial, age of mother at first birth, medical or developmental concerns, parental divorce -- may want to intentionally explore ways to help their only child have experiences in which they can hone their social skills in relationships with their peers.

Source: Downey, D. B. & Condron, D. J. (2004). Playing well with others in kindergarten: The benefit of siblings at home. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 333-350.

-- Dr. Suzanna Smith, Associate Professor, Human Development

Aging Parents Helping Adult Children: The Experience of the Sandwiched Generation

Ingersoll-Dayton, B., Neal, M., Hammer, L. (2001)/ Aging parents helping adult children: The experience of the sandwiched generation. Family Relations, 50, 262-271.

Overview

Most research focused on caregiving has almost exclusively addressed the impact of caregiving on the care-provider and has addressed such topics as caregiver burden and stress, employment issues of the caregiver, family sacrifices and financial concerns. Rarely has the literature explored caregiving as a bi-directional exchange of emotional support, goods, services and financial aid between the adult child caregiver and the older parent. Finally, little research has explored gender differences in caregiving.

Introduction

This article reports on a research study that used both qualitative (i.e. focus groups) and quantitative methods to seek responses to the following research questions:

1. What kinds of help do sandwiched-generation adults receive from the aging parents for whom they are providing care?
2. What is the extent of the help received from these aging parents, and does the quantity and nature of help differ by the adult child's gender?
3. What are the effects of receiving help from aging parents on the adult child's relationship with the parent, caregiver performance, and work performance, and do these effects differ by the adult child's gender?

The researchers chose a sample of participants who were: 1) married or cohabitating, 2) providing care for an older parent, parent-in-law or step parent 3) had at least one child under 18 years living in the home; and 4) were both employed at least half-time.

Conclusion

Despite the overwhelming stresses of caregiving for both older parents and children, respondents also referenced the benefits and the reciprocal nature of caregiving relationships: Including emotional and financial support, help with child care and, in some situations, help with household tasks from the older parent. Results, when analyzed by gender are displayed below:

Support provided to adult children by care-receiving older parents

	Emotional1	Financial	Child Care	Household
Husbands	60.9%	30.7%	46.2%	14.9%
Wives	68.8%	30.6%	47.4%	17.2%

¹The only significant difference by gender in these areas are the emotional support, with husbands reporting significantly less emotional support than wives.

The researchers also sought to learn how the provision of support from the care-receiving parent impacted the quality of care provided by the adult child. Results showed that both husbands and wives who were receiving support from the parent worked more successfully as a caregiver. Emotional support was particularly significant for husbands. When asked what made them work less effectively as a caregiver, husbands reported that receiving financial assistance and household help negatively impacted their work as a caregiver. It may be that worries about the parent spending money or getting hurt trying to help around the house accounted for these results. Women reported that having the aging parent assist with household chores was sometimes more work than doing it themselves. It was husband's, rather than the aging parent's, assistance with household chores that reduced the wife's stress.

In summary, the researchers found that a substantial number of caregivers receive help from their older parents for whom they provide care. This help brings with it both benefits and costs. Most benefits are related to the emotional support provided by the parent while costs are associated with increased worry when the parent is involved in child-care or household assistance.

Implications for Practice

Although "elders providing help" appears to be somewhat problematic for adult caregivers, it is important to help adult caregivers identify safe and truly useful opportunities for the older adults to contribute. Seeking more emotional support from the care-receiving parent may in fact, increase the quality of care provided by the adult child.

Extension Response

Caregiving is an important role for families around the country. As in all situations related to aging, the needs in Florida are more significant than the rest of the United States. I chose this article to begin providing you with more background information about caregiving. In the near future you will be seeing more information about caregiving available to you for programming support. The National Family Caregiver Support Program is supported by the United States Administration on Aging (AoA) and provides a wealth of information about caregiving. This information is available in nine languages including English, Chinese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese. Topics on this Web site include Alzheimer's disease, caregiving factsheets (parts of which would be useful for newsletters, etc.), policy information, caregiver survival tips and state aging contact information.

--Dr. Carolyn Wilken, M.P.H., Associate Professor, Gerontology

 

Culture and Conflict or Cohesion between Adolescents and Parents

Many studies have been conducted on this topic, however, recent studies have begun to focus on adolescents from multicultural backgrounds to explore whether and how they may have attitudes or beliefs that are similar or differ on matters such as parental authority and individual autonomy.

One such study (Fuligni, 1998) examined beliefs and expectations on authority, autonomy and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion among Chinese, Mexican, Filipino and European students in 6^th, 8^th and 10^th grades in an ethnically diverse school district in California. Ethnic, gender and grade differences on beliefs and expectation about authority and autonomy found that adolescents with Mexican, Filipino and Chinese backgrounds held beliefs that were consistent with greater respect for parental authority and less emphasis on autonomy than their European peers. Chinese adolescents had later expectations for autonomy than all the other ethnic backgrounds while Mexican and Filipino adolescents expected to receive behavioral autonomy at an earlier age. Chinese adolescents, for example, believed that they should be allowed to go to parties and date at a later age than European adolescents.

All of the adolescents were more willing to disagree with their mothers than fathers and all adolescents were more likely to disagree with parents over time. Mexican and Filipino adolescents believed that it was less acceptable to openly contradict their fathers and believed it to be inappropriate to argue with parents, however, Filipino adolescents were specifically less willing to argue and talk back to their mothers. Further, the younger adolescents were more likely to accept parental authority in their lives and the older the adolescent, the more they endorsed disagreeing with parents. Findings concluded "adolescents withdrew their endorsement of parental authority over personal topics as they become older."

In terms of generations (first, second, or third generation immigrants), adolescents of later generations had earlier expectations for autonomy than early generations and were more apt to openly disagree with parents. Further, females reported less conflict and cohesion with fathers and more with their mothers than boys while boys reported the same amount of conflict with both parents, and both genders reported greater amounts of conflict with their mothers than their fathers. Older students reported less cohesion with both parents than younger students and gender differences in conflict and cohesion did not vary according to ethnic backgrounds.

Some interesting specifics were reported from this multicultural study, such as those "adolescents who were more likely to disagree with their mothers and less likely to endorse parental authority indicated more conflict with their mothers." In fact, "all beliefs and expectations were related to adolescents' feelings of cohesion with their mothers." Further, "all adolescents' expectations for autonomy were associated with closeness with fathers" (Fuligni, 1998).

Implications for Extension Agents, Youth Workers and Parents

These interesting findings indicate that there are significant differences among adolescents with Mexican, Filipino and Chinese backgrounds regarding their beliefs that were consistent with greater respect for parental authority and less emphasis on autonomy than their European peers. This may imply that one might expect "smoother sailing" from adolescents with these cultural roots (particularly for Chinese adolescents who had later expectations for autonomy than all the other ethnic backgrounds) than perhaps some other backgrounds, however, the influence of generational exposure to Western cultures seems to dilute some of these beliefs. Since adolescent of later generations had earlier expectations for autonomy than early generations and were more apt to openly disagree with parents, this might serve as a warning to multicultural parents that exposure to contrasting values and the modern Western world may indeed shift behavioral trends to a more "Americanized" version of these cultural influences. Further, the findings that adolescents "who were more likely to disagree with their mothers and less likely to endorse parental authority indicated more conflict with their mothers" and "all beliefs and expectations were related to adolescents' feelings of cohesion with their mothers" confirms the significance of the mother/adolescent relationship. And, since all adolescents were more likely to disagree with parents over time, this might be expected and explained as a normal pursuit of autonomy, independence and exploration typical for adolescents as they strive to gain greater cognitive, emotional, and behavioral control over their lives. Understanding that this goes with the developmental territory of adolescence, no matter the cultural background, leads us to the familiar conclusion that it is a time of growth that requires patience, compassion and respect as these adolescents seek to explore their more adult-like thoughts and feelings as they surface.

Fuligni, A.J. (1998). Authority, autonomy, and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion: A study of adolescents from Mexican, Chinese, Filipino, and European Backgrounds. Developmental Psychology, 34, 782-792.

--Dr. Rose Barnett Assistant Professor, Youth Development and Public Policy