Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars of the Constitutional Rights of Children in Support of Petitioners in Obergefell v. Hodges

Supreme Court precedent establishes that the government may not punish children for matters beyond their control. Same-sex marriage bans and non-recognition laws (“marriage bans”) do precisely this. The states argue that marriage is good for children, yet marriage bans categorically exclude an entire class of children – children of same-sex couples – from the legal, economic and social benefits of marriage. This amicus brief recounts a powerful body of equal protection jurisprudence that prohibits punishing children to reflect moral disapproval of parental conduct or to incentivize adult behavior. We then explain that marriage bans punish children of same-sex couples because they: 1) foreclose their central legal route to family formation; 2) categorically void their existing legal parent-child relationships incident to out-of-state marriages; 3) deny them economic rights and benefits; and 4) inflict psychological and stigmatic harm. States cannot justify marriage bans as good for children and then exclude children of same-sex couples based on moral disapproval of their same-sex parents’ relationships or to incentivize opposite-sex couples to “procreate” within the bounds of marriage. To do so, severs the connection between legal burdens and individual responsibility and creates a permanent class or caste distinction.

Brief for Amici Curiae Scholars of the Constitutional Rights of Children in Support of Respondent Edith Windsor Addressing the Merits and Supporting Affirmance

This amicus brief filed by Scholars of the Constitutional Rights of Children turns the spotlight on children in same-sex families. The brief enumerates the ways Section 3 of DOMA impairs children's interests by denying federal recognition of their parents' marriages.

Kids Alive! Support for Children of Parents with Cancer: An Exemplar Program for Children of Parents with Cancer

Cancer in a parent or caregiver is an event that affects the whole family. The roles and responsibilities of the diagnosed parent, as well as those of each family member, are affected at the time of diagnosis and throughout the progression of the illness. According to the American Cancer Society, there will be an estimated 1,665,540 new cancer cases diagnosed and 585,720 cancer deaths in 2014. This staggering statistic means there are a number of cancer diagnoses that will directly affect thousands of parents and their children. Past research suggests this upheaval in the system is particularly stressful on children and can lead to a number of responses including anxiety, depression, distress, and other negative reactions. Despite the large number of parents and caregivers diagnosed with cancer in the United States each year, there are relatively few support groups aimed at supporting children affected by parental cancer. Support groups provide opportunities to serve this population in a number of advantageous ways by providing safety, support, and a sense of community. Additionally, support groups allow this population of young people to express their fears and worries, connect to others going through similar circumstances, and explore their parent's diagnosis in a context that is helpful and developmentally appropriate. Past research has found that children who do not receive support during this life-changing event can be negatively affected throughout the life span. On the other hand, this event can be a time to build a child's resilience and provide the structure through which they may thrive in adversity. Support groups offer the opportunity to address this difficult event and lead to positive results. Kids Alive! is one such group that has been proactive in support for children of parents diagnosed with cancer since 1995. Kids Alive!, a support group that runs out of Porter Hospital in Denver Colorado, uses Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey to structure monthly groups. The Hero's Journey, described in Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), focuses on a set pattern that all heroes must go through during their journey towards an ultimate victory and self-discovery. Kids Alive! incorporates this journey into a curriculum aimed at helping children explore their thoughts and feelings around their parent's cancer and leads to a realization that they are not alone on this journey. Over the course of eight months, children in Kids Alive! receive support and solidarity that leads to life-changing experiences and an understanding of what a diagnosis of cancer in a parent can mean. Kids Alive! consists of professionals and volunteers who take time to recognize and support this underserved population. The program has led to positive outcomes for nearly two decades and consistently increases the numbers of children and families served. The purpose of this paper is to describe the Kids Alive! program as an exemplar program that addresses these problems by utilizing protective factors research has found in this population. Further, this paper will discuss areas of future research while providing the model of an effective program aimed at serving an important population. Additionally, the model of Kids Alive! will be described through this paper in a way that allows for other oncology settings to consider this relatively simple program that provides consistently positive results.

Examining the Complex Relationships of Early Intervention on Language and Psychosocial Development in Families Facing Multiple Risks with a Focus on Children of Hispanic Immigrants

Abundant research has shown that poverty has negative influences on young child academic and psychosocial development, and unfortunately, disparities in school readiness between low and high income children can be seen as early the first year of life. The largest federal early care and education intervention for these vulnerable children is Early Head Start (EHS). To diminish these disparate child outcomes, EHS seeks to provide community based flexible programming for infants and toddlers and their families. Given how relatively recent these programs have been offered, little is known about the nuances of how EHS impacts infant and toddler language and psychosocial development. Using a framework of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) this paper had 5 goals: 1) to characterize the associations between domain specific and cumulative risk and child outcomes 2) to validate and explore these risk-outcome associations separately for Children of Hispanic immigrants (COHIs), 3) to explore relationships among family characteristics, multiple environmental factors, and dosage patterns in different EHS program types, 4) to examine the relationship between EHS dosage and child outcomes, and 5) to examine how EHS compliance impacts child internalizing and externalizing behaviors and emerging language abilities. Results of the current study showed that risks were differentially related to child outcomes. Poor maternal mental health was related to child internalizing and externalizing behaviors, but not related to emerging child language skills. Although child language skills were not related to maternal mental health, they were related to economic hardship. Additionally, parent level Spanish use and heritage orientation were associated with positive child outcomes. Results also showed that these relationships differed when COHIs and children with native-born parents were examined separately. Further, unique patterns emerged for EHS program use, for example families who participated in home-based care were less likely to comply with EHS attendance requirements. These findings provide tangible suggestions for EHS stakeholders: namely, the need to develop effective programming that targets engagement for diverse families enrolled in EHS programs.

Molecular Genetic Basis of Opposite Gene by Environment Interactions in Reading Disability and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

The goal of this study is to better understand the genetic basis of Reading Disability (RD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by examining molecular G x E interactions with parental education for each disorder. Research indicates that despite sharing genetic risk factors, RD and ADHD are influenced by different types of G x E interactions with parental education - a diathesis stress interaction in the case of ADHD and a bioecological interaction in RD. In order to resolve this apparent paradox, we conducted a preliminary study using behavioral genetic methods to test for G x E interactions in RD and the inattentive subtype of ADHD (ADHD-I) in the same sample of monozygotic and dizygotic Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center same-sex twin pairs (DeFries et al., 1997), and our findings were consistent with the literature. We posited a genetic hypothesis for this opposite pattern of interactions, which suggests that only genes specific to each disorder enter into these opposite interactions, not the shared genes underlying their comorbidity. This study sought to further investigate this paradox using molecular genetics methods. We examined multiple candidate genes identified for RD or related language phenotypes and those identified for ADHD for G x E interactions with parental education. The specific aims of this study were as follows: 1) partition known risk alleles for RD and/or related language phenotypes and ADHD-I into those which are pleiotropic and non-pleiotropic by testing each risk allele for association with both RD and ADHD-I, 2) explore the main effects of parental education on both RD and ADHD-I, 3) address G-E correlations, and 4) conduct exploratory G x E interaction analyses in order to test the genetic hypothesis. Analyses suggested a number of pleiotropic genes that influence both RD and ADHD; however, results did not remain after correcting for multiple comparisons. Although exploratory G x E interaction findings were not significant after multiple comparison correction, results suggested a G x E interaction in the bioecological direction with KIAA0319, parental education, and ADHD-I. Given the limited power in the current study, replication of these findings with larger samples is necessary.

Struggling, Coping, And Thriving: Sense-Making In Stepfamily Couples' Narratives About Coparenting

The term coparenting implies a bioparental dyad that often excludes the stepparent's role in sharing parenting across joint-custody households. Focusing solely on this dyad also precludes gaining an understanding of how stepfamily couples manage together the communication and sharing of parental responsibilities with the parent(s) in the shared children's other home. In a departure from this bioparental dyad-focused approach, this study locates the stepfamily couple at the center of an inquiry into managing coparenting across households. This mixed methods design study included in-depth interviews of 32 stepfamily couples whose narratives about coparenting were analyzed using grounded theory methods. Forty-one percent of stepparents engage in direct coparenting communication, sometimes manifested as the coactive approach identified in this study. Stepfamily couples also involve the stepparent indirectly in coparenting communication, through the conferred and consultative approaches. As well, the couples' narratives about coparenting identify them as either united, where they share the experience, or divided, where coparenting is reserved exclusively for the bioparent to manage. The stepfamily couples' narratives about significant coparenting experiences revealed that they experience and make sense of coparenting as 1) struggling, 2) coping, or 3) thriving. No significant relationship was found between marital satisfaction and experiencing coparenting as strugglers, copers or thrivers. Grounded theory analysis of these narratives also reflects the four dichotomous dimensions of 1) regard-disregard, 2) decency-duplicity, 3) facilitation-interference, and 4) accommodation-inflexibility. Significant incidents located along these dimensions contribute to the stepfamily couples' identification as struggling, coping, or thriving in coparenting. Experiences on the extreme ends of the dichotomous dimensions generate positive and negative turning points for the coparenting interactions and relationships. As well, experiences on the negative end of the dimensional poles can present challenges for the stepfamily couples. Finally, a synthesis of the findings related to the dichotomous dimensions generates a theory of shared parenting values expectancy.

Parent-Child Interaction and Children's Self-Concept

This study is designed to investigate the relationships between marital communication, the quality of parents' ability to assist their children in joint problem-solving, and children's independent mastery attempts and perceived competence at problem-solving, and behavioral indicators of self-esteem. Couples' skill at regulating their own and their children's negative affect within the marital and parent-child family subsystems is hypothesized to predict the quality of their assistance, or scaffolding behavior, to their children during joint problem-solving. Further, the quality of parental scaffolding behavior is expected to predict children's independent mastery attempts, levels of perceived competence at problemsolving, and behavioral indicators of self-esteem. Families for the study will be those with children between 3 1/2 to six years of age recruited from subjects participating in a longitudinal study of communication in marriage being conducted at the Denver Center for Marital and Family Studies. Families will participate in three interaction tasks designed to tap parental scaffolding behavior during problemsolving with their children. Children will be administered self-report measures to tap their perceived competence at such problem-solving as those in the interaction tasks and parents will complete a questionnaire tapping the behavioral indicators of their child's self-esteem. Family interaction data will be coded with the use of a microanalytic coding system developed by this study, the Parent-Child Interaction Coding System. Marital communication data at three time points, premaritally, during the transition to parenthood , and concurrently, will be obtained from couples' interactions from the longitudinal study. The clinical significance of this study includes implications for training couples how to effectively regulate negative affect and offer their children sensitive assistance during joint problem-solving.

The Effects of Father Absence Due to Divorce: A Systems Interpretation.

In American society, the incidence of divorce continues to rise. In 1974, the estimate was that 40% of all new marriages would end in divorce. When children are involved, the mother usually regains custody. Although the number of children of divorce living with their fathers is increasing, it is still a small percent. In addition, the rate of remarriages is lower when children are involved (Hetherington.et al.,1977). Consequently, a large number of children are being raised in father-absent homes, and indications are that the numbers are increasing. A recent Denver Post article predicted that 50% of all children now being born will spend some of their childhood in a single-parent home. In terms of frequency, the father-absent family is becoming quite common, even "normal," yet it often continues to be considered a "broken" home and, when compared to the two-parent family, an inadequate structure in which to raise healthy children. Since father-absent families are so common these days, this opinion is in need of review.This paper will present a review of the father absence research in three areas: sex role development, cognitive development and personality development. The role of moderator variables will be discussed. And, finally,an open systems model will be proposed as a vehicle to better understand the effects of father absence and as a guide for future research.

Influence of Religious Institutions in the Creation and Implementation of Public Policy: The Case of Roman Catholic Argentina and Secular Uruguay

The strong presence of religious institutions in Latin America, especially the Roman Catholic Church, and their participation in the creation and implementation of public policy within a sovereign state can be counter-productive for the social development and progress of that specific country. Argentina and Uruguay and the social controversy of social issues of abortion and same-sex marriage are used as examples to establish the accuracy of the above statement. Historical, statistical, and legislative information about both topics in both countries show that the political power that the Roman Catholic Church has in the region is more an outdated influence than a reality, and the principle of secularization appears to be the most stabilizing philosophy for modern nations.