• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.171-180
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• 2003

In this study, the characteristics and patterns of family problems were explored. What constituted family problems, and how those evolved over the period of drastic changes in the Korean society were examined, by analyzing articles published from the 1940s to the 1980s in the four major national newspapers in Korea. A total of 6542 articles related to family problems in the four newspapers, Chosun, Dong-A, Kyunghyang, and Seoul, were used for the content analysis of this study. The main categories of family problems were classified as poverty, marital issues, issues related to children and adolescents, elderly issues, problems in the family as an institution, and the so-called family-lag problem. Each of these categories consisted of several subcategories: The poverty-related problems included the problems caused by difficulty in making a living and instability of living, for example. The marital issues category consisted of conflicts between the couple, unfaithful spouses, domestic violence, divorce, and so on. Issues related to children and adolescents included juvenile delinquency, difficulty in bringing up children, child abuse, single motherhood, and underage household heads, for example. The elderly issues included the anxiety over the aging society, support for the elderly, conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, alienation of the elderly, etc. Problems in the family as an institution consisted of the legal issues in such areas as marriage, succession of the family head, and adoption. Lastly, the family-lag problem included confusion over family values, and conflict caused by the inconsistency between consciousness and actual behavior related to the family or family crisis. From the 1940s to the 1980s, family-lag was the most common problem (26.2% of the total articles), followed by issues related to children and adolescents (23.1%), poverty (16.2%), marital issues (15.9%), elderly issues (12.4%), and problems in the family as an institution (6.0%). During the 1940s and the 1950s, poverty was a prominent problem, and in the 1960s, issues related to children and adolescents were most commonly addressed in the articles. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the family-lag problem was the most frequently addressed.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.679-687
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• 2014

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Recently, there has been an increased interest in the importance of family meals on children's health and nutrition. This study aims to examine if the eating habits and eating behaviors of children are different according to the frequency of family dinners. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The subjects were third-grade students from 70 elementary schools in 17 cities nationwide. A two-stage stratified cluster sampling was employed. The survey questionnaire was composed of items that examined the general characteristics, family meals, eating habits, eating behaviors, and environmental influence on children's eating. The subjects responded to a self-reported questionnaire. Excluding the incomplete responses, the data (n = 3,435) were analyzed using ${\chi}^2$-test or t-test. RESULTS: The group that had more frequent family dinners (${\geq}$ 5 days/week, 63.4%), compared to those that had less (${\leq}$ 4 days/week, 36.6%), showed better eating habits, such as eating meals regularly, performing desirable behaviors during meals, having breakfast frequently, having breakfast with family members (P < 0.001), and not eating only what he or she likes (P < 0.05). Those who had more frequent family dinners also consumed healthy foods with more frequency, including protein foods, dairy products, grains, vegetables, seaweeds (P < 0.001), and fruits (P < 0.01). However, unhealthy eating behaviors (e.g., eating fatty foods, salty foods, sweets, etc.) were not significantly different by the frequency of family dinners. CONCLUSIONS: Having dinner frequently with family members was associated with more desirable eating habits and with healthy eating behaviors in young children. Thus nutrition education might be planned to promote family dinners, by emphasizing the benefits of having family meals on children's health and nutrition and making more opportunities for family meals.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.44 no.1 s.215
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• pp.75-85
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• 2006

Emotional expressiveness is a pathway by which parents affect the emotional competence of their children. This study examined how the emotional expressiveness of parents is influenced by the emotional reactions of their children and demographic characteristics within a family context. Data for the present study were from 200 parents in 100 two-parent families who completed self-report questionnaires for emotional expressiveness, children's emotional reactions to stressful situations, and demographics. In preliminary analyses, mothers expressed emotions more frequently than fathers did, and mothers with high expressiveness of positive emotions were more educated and had higher family income. Although fathers' emotional expressiveness was closely related to mothers' expressiveness, none of the demographic factors were related to fathers' expressiveness. When all predictors were considered in hierarchical multiple regressions, family income was the significant predictor for mothers' positive expressiveness, whereas mothers' negative expressiveness were explained by children's emotional reactions, mother education, child sex, the number of siblings, fathers' education, and mothers' time spent with children. When controlled for mothers' expressiveness, fathers' time spent with children was the only significant predictor for fathers' negative expressiveness. The results of this study suggested that parents' emotional expressiveness varied with socioeconomic status. The discussion also examines the gender differences between mothers and fathers in emotional expressiveness, and their relations to children's sex.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.27-55
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• 1992

The Purpose of this study was to examine the predictive capacity of mother's perception of the family environment (cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, mother's psychosocial competence) for children's social competence. The hypotheses of this reserch were 1) There will be significant positive relationships among mother's cohesion, expressiveness, and mother's psychosocial competence. 2) There will be significant negative relationships between mother's conflict and measures of children's social competence. 3) There will not be a significant relationships between SES and measures of children's social competence. 4) There will be significant relationships between children's gender and measures of children's social competence. The subjects of this study were 133 family of mother-child. The period of research was from Aug. 20, 1990 to Feb. 29, 1992. Correlations, t-test, F-test, and multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationships among variables and measures of total sample, daughter sample, and son sample. The results of this study appeared as follow: 1. Family environment (cohesion, expressiveness, and conflict) and mother's psychosocial competence were related to children's social competence. 2. There were negative relationship between mother's conflict and daughter's social competence. 3. Daughters had the higher social competence than sons. 4. Socioeconomic status(perceived by mother) of family was not related to children's social competence. 5. Sociodemographic variables affecting to children's competence were mother's school career, mother's age, mother's religion.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.267-279
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• 2001

The object of this study is to provide the basic data for the caring of parents by understanding emotional status, physical status, and family support of parents with cardiac disease children. The subjects of this study were consisted of 105 parents of cardiac disease children admitted at 'G' hospital in Inchon, and 'S' hospital in Puchon. The data were collected from November 6 to December 21, 2000. Four instruments were used to collect the data : Spielberger's STIS, Cornell Medical Index(CMI), Yang's stress scale, and Moos's Family Environment Scale Form R, the latter 3 are modified by researcher. The collected data were tested using frequencies, percentiles, means, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation coefficient with SPSSWIN program. The results of this study were as follows: 1. There were statistically significant differences in degree of anxiety on age, number of children, and children's order of birth. 2. There was a statistically significant difference in degree of physical status on presence of the other patient in family. 3. There were not statistically significant differences in degree of stress and family support on demographic factors. 4. There were positive correlations between physical status and family support, and between anxiety and stress, but negative correlations between family support and stress, between anxiety and family support, between anxiety and physical status, and between stress and physical status.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2001

The purpose of the descriptive correlation study was to examine relations among the hope, the burden and the family function in mothers caring for children with cancer. 145 mothers completed the three questionaires of the study divided into tree sections: a) The Hope Scale, b) The Burden Scale, c) FACES-Ⅲ. The collected data was analysed with t-test, ANOVA, Scheffe test and Pearson correlation coefficients. The results were as follows: 1) The average age of mothers of children with cancer was 35.6 years old and the ages between 30 to 39 were the most abundant. 57.3％ of the mothers had an education level of below high school education and 66.0％ had religion. The average age of the children was 8.6 years old. Ages between 1 to 7 were the most and 60.8％ were diagnosed as leukemia. 2) Regarding the section of degree of burden, mothers of children with cancer marked 2.6 out of 5, and the degree of hope 3.2 out of 4. The result for family function came out to be 3.5 out of 5, an average of family cohesion of 3.9 and family adaptation of 3.1. 3) There were significantly less burden to the mothers who were living together with a spouse compared to the mothers who were not. Also mothers who replied that they preserved good health came out to be exposed to less burden compared to the mothers who did not. In analysing hope according to the general characteristics of mothers of children with cancer, mothers who were employed marked high in the degree of hope compared to unemployed mothers. Furthermore, the degree of family cohesion marked higher with mothers who had higher education of college graduate, mothers with religion and mothers with a monthly family income of over ￦3,000,000, compared to the group of mothers with lower education of high school graduate, non-religious or with a monthly family income of less than ￦1,000,000. 4) Excluding the fact that the group sorted with children diagnosed as leukemia marked a perceivably high score regarding family cohesion, compared to groups with other cancers, the degree of burden, hope and family cohesion did not show any noticeable difference according to characteristics of children with different cancers. 5) In the correlation of the hope, the burden and the family function regarding the mothers of children with cancer, the burden did not have any manifest relationship with hope or family function. However, the degree of hope and family function cohesion had a direct proportional relationship, as family cohesion marked higher when the degree of hope were high.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.113-132
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• 2001

In order to develop a model for better understanding of causal relationships in resiliency factors in families of children with disabilities, 200 families participated in this adaptation of the Resiliency Model of McCubbin and McCubbin(1993). The 6 latent variables included in the hypothesized model were family stress, family hardiness, family schema, community support, family problem-solving communication, and family adaptation. The models were developed on the basis of confirmatory factor analysis and compared using covariance structure modeling (LISREL). Adequate fitness of the model was observed. Family stress showed negative effect on family schema and on family hardiness. Family schema showed positive effect on community support and on family hardiness. Family hardiness showed positive effect on family problem-solving communication, and family problem-solving communication showed positive effect on family adaptation.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.40 no.9
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• pp.175-189
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to test a structural model about family income as causally related to family hardiness, pile-up stress, communication, and family adaptation in families of children with disabilities. 250 families of children with disabilities participated as subjects. The models were developed on the basis of confirmatory factor analysis and compared using covariance structure modeling(LISREL). Adequate fitness of the model was observed. Family income showed negative effect on pile-up stress and positive effect on family adaptation. Pile-up stress showed negative effect on family hardiness. Family hardiness showed positive effect on family communication, and family communication showed positive effect on family adaptation.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2016

This study developed and evaluated a Seoul National University literacy program for multicultural family children (SNU-LPMFC). The program was developed to enhance Korean language ability for children from multicultural backgrounds. The characteristics of this program were education using fairy tales and nursery rhymes, individual education from home visiting teacher, and parent participation education for effective children's learning support. The effectiveness of this program was examined based on 54 young children and their mothers (34 in the experimental group and 20 in the control group). To examine the effect of SNU-LPMFC, we assessed children's literacy ability as pre-tests and post-tests as well as interviewed the home visiting teachers. After 8 weeks' field application, the experimental group exhibited higher scores than the control group in total language ability and phonology. Home visiting teachers highly praised the effectiveness of the program as the children showed a higher level of interest and attention. SNU-LPMFC was shown to be an effective program to improve multicultural family children's literacy. Implications for research and practice were discussed along with the main results of this study. This study extends the limitations of existing language education programs with uniform teaching methods, configured a customized education approach for children from multicultural families and helps develop concrete teaching material that validated its effectiveness.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.33-50
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• 2011

This study aims to examine experiences of adoptive families, mainly focusing on mothers with their biological children and adopted a child, through a phenomenological approach. The subjects of this study are adoptive family's mothers with their biological children according to a criterion-based selection. 15 mothers who adopted children under 12 months, who are currently aged over 6, are selected and given personal and in-depth interviews, questions ranging from the process before adoption, foster care and changes in family relationships to the issues caused by adoption and coping methods. 6 steps of a phenomenological method that Colaizzi(1978) proposed are applied to analyze the data. The results of this study are as follows. The central theme of this study is 'A family which has harmonized with love beyond blood ties'. First, the participants have shown difficulties in different aspects over adoption than those of sterile families. The motive of their adoption is to let adopted children experience a happy childhood in a loving family. Secondly, the participants have adjusted themselves to new adoptive families, have committed to the care of their new children, and have experienced a change in family relationships. Finally, adoptive families have successfully been settled while overcoming difficulties together.