The Family Life Project: Children's Lives in Low Wealth Rural Communities *

1. The Family Life Project:  Children's Lives in Low Wealth Rural Communities* Lynne Vernon-Feagans Mark Greenberg Lynne Vernon-Feagans Patricia Garrett-Peters Roger Mills-Koonce *2PO1HD039667 funded by NICHD with cofunding by NIDA

2. The Family Life Project • The purpose of the Family Life Project is to understand the multiple interacting processes in early childhood that may be the causal mechanisms linked to later academic and social adjustment in children who live in low wealth rural communities.

3. Outline I. Why is this Study Important II. Research Design and Demographics III. Sampling of Major Findings

4. I. Why is this Study Important? • There are literally no large scale studies of children who live in low wealth rural communities. • Yet they constitute about 20% to 25% of the children in the United States.

5. Child Poverty in Rural and Urban Areas: 1990 - 2007 O’Hare (2009)

6. Job loss in rural areas has been significant over the last 30 years

7. Housing for poor families is challenging Trailers Single Family Homes

8. Changing Demographics Outmigration In Migration Diversity

9. The loss of many community schools

10. Poverty Housing Isolation Jobs In and out migration Children have lower pre-readiness skills Bus rides are longer Tax base is lower for schools Consolidated schools Children are exposed to less random violent crime More home ownership More child school stability Teachers know many of the families of the children they teach Teachers have more experience Families rate teachers more favorably Families and schools value their sense of place The Changing Rural Context Assets Challenges

11. Need for understanding underlying interacting mechanisms Child Rurality Family Child Competence Poverty Childcare/school Work Race/ Ethnicity Community 8 years Birth Time

12. Poverty Parenting Time with children Chaos Poorer Child Outcomes

13. Breadth and Depth of Causal Processes Breadth of Causal Processes Community/school Family and neighborhood Psychology Anthropology Demography Sociology Health Methodology Biology of stress Genetics

14. II. Research Design • Target the two large regions east of the Mississippi with large pockets of rural poverty • The South: Three contiguous poor counties in North Carolina • Appalachia: Three contiguous poor counties in Pennsylvania

15. FLP Sample = 1292 Children* Poverty Level North Carolina 0-200% >200% African American 490 29 Non-African American 168 86 Pennsylvania Non-African American 344 175 *Recruitment Summary

18. Family Life Project: Data Collection for Phase I Birth 2 months 6 months 15 months Hospital Home Visit 2 Home Visits Phone Call Home Visit Child Care Visit Child Care Visit 24 months 36 months Phone Call 2 Home Visits Phone Calls 2 Home Visits Child Care Visit Child Care Visit

19. The Family Life Project: Data Collection for Phase II 1st Grade 2nd Grade 48 months 60 months Pre-K Kindergarten Home Visit Home Visit Home Visit Classroom Visit Classroom Visit Classroom Visit Classroom Visit Child Assessment Child Assessment Child Assessment 2 Child Assessments 19

20. The Family Life Project: Data Collection for Phase III 3rd Grade 4th Grade 5th Grade 6th Grade Classroom Observation Classroom Observation Classroom Observation Peer Assessment Home Visit Peer Assessment Home Visit Child Assessment Child Assessment Child Assessment Child Assessment

21. III. Sampling of Major Findings A. Children’s competence at pre-K and Kindergarten B. Family challenges and child development C. Family processes and child development

22. Children’s Competence at Pre-K and Kindergarten

29. Family Challenges and Child Development

30. Even though there are many benefits to non-urban living, are there also specific challenges that can affect family life?

31. Exploring Contributions to Chaos in Non-Urban Areas

32. What is chaos? • Disorganization • Challenges to preparing for daily living • Instability • Changes in residences or work schedules/shifts • Unpredictability • Challenges to maintaining family routines & schedules

33. Unique to Non-Urban Areas • Workforce challenges • Often commute long distances to work • Seasonal and temporary work that is not predictable/dependable • Work non-traditional shifts, incl. night and rotating shifts (not 9-5) • Can be disruptive to family life re: maintaining routines and schedules (incl. mealtimes and homework)

34. Limited availability and accessibility of services with respect to transportation and child care • Transportation • Limited access to public transportation in non-urban areas • Non-urban families drive farther to work and child care • Presents challenges esp. for families without reliable transportation

35. Child care • Fewer child care options resulting in longer distances • Hours of available child care does not match non-traditional work hours (e.g., night shift). • FLP families cobble together a variety of child care arrangements, incl. relative care, family child care homes, and center care • Children often in a # of different child care settings each week due to changes in parents’ work hours

36. Social Support and Social Networks • Non-urban residents report higher levels of social support as compared to urbanites • More and stronger ties to kin • People in a social network know each other • Non-urban residents are more likely to receive help from kin as compared to urbanites and may assist with transportation and child care needs

37. Still, challenges in the workforce, with transportation, and child care can lead to disorganization, instability, and unpredictability in families’ lives(chaos). • In FLP this kind of chaos has been associated with • Poorer language in preschoolers • Lower scores on reading and math in Kindergarten We continue to try to understand the ways in which these workforce, transportation, and child care challenges can contribute to chaos in families’ lives and how social support and social networks can help minimize it.

38. Examining Family Factors in the Development of Young Children

39. In addition to extensive collection of income, geography, and school data, the FLP has focused significant time and resources in studying children’s family lives. • We have seen children and families in the home at: 2, 6, 15, 24, 36, and 58 months of age, as well as during the 1st grade year of school

40. Types of family information • Family structure & composition • Who is in the family home? • How does this change over time? • Who has significant childcare responsibilities for the child? • Mothers, fathers, non-residential fathers, co-residential grandmothers, etc. • Caregiver-child interactions and relationships • Emotional support and comfort • Mental stimulation and language use • How parents structure activities for their children

41. How do we get this information? • Interviews and questionnaires with caregivers • Coding video recordings of interactions between caregivers and children • As of today, we have coded almost 10,000 caregiver-child interactions from the FLP! • As children have gotten older, we also get information directly from them • Family drawings • Using “family” figures or dolls to act out stories

42. So, what have we learned? • Like several other studies, we see that family processes are very important for multiple areas of child behavior • We see early effects of parenting by • Mothers • Fathers • Residential Grandmothers • We see parenting effects on • Language development • Cognitive development • Stress regulation • Emotional development • Behavioral development Each of which are associated with children’s success in school and beyond

43. Example: Parenting effects on children’s cognitive development 6 months 15 months 36 months 24 months Mothers’ emotional support Mothers’ emotional support Children's cognitive development Children's cognitive development Fathers’ emotional support Fathers’ emotional support

44. Example: Parenting effects on children’s cognitive development 6 months 15 to 24 months 36 months Economic hardship Children's cognitive development Family processes Child stress (cortisol)

45. Major points • The FLP is one of the first major studies to • Identify early, specific, and unbiased effects of both mothers and fathers parenting behaviors on the cognitive development of young children • Identify multiple paths of influence from contextual factors to child outcomes as a function of family processes • Including new findings relating systems like child stress and cognitive ability that previously have not been studied together

46. Ongoing goals • In Phase III of the FLP, we are interested in how • Family processes change and adapt over time as children grow and develop new skills, abilities, and needs • How families cope with changing contextual circumstances, such as the ongoing economic climate that is hitting areas like eastern NC particularly hard • How do the effects of early family processes and child development carry forward to influence children’s success later in school

47. Thank you! Questions?