Key Summary Report from Wave 1   

Parental warmth

Parental warmth is an important factor in successful parenting (Baumrind 1996). Of parents who had children in the older cohort, most reported warm relationships with their child. For example, 93 per cent of parents indicated they ‘always’ or ‘often’ hugged their child for no particular reason. Ninety-two per cent indicated that when the child does something really well, they ‘always’ or ‘often’ go out of their way to say how pleased they are.

Many parents responded that they rarely (21 per cent) or never (35 per cent) sent the Study child to the bedroom to manage his/her behaviour but did ensure the Study child completed something he/she was asked to do (40 per cent). Very few parents (7 per cent) used smacking to manage the Study child’s behaviour but responded that they did use verbal methods (for example, yelling) if he/she did something wrong (34 per cent). ¹⁵

Social and emotional wellbeing

About 1,500 parents agreed to talk about their feelings and were asked a series of questions about ‘big worries, stress and sadness’. Concepts of stress do not always translate well, particularly for families living in remote areas. Footprints in Time uses a small number of the questions developed by the Menzies School of Health Research for their Aboriginal Birth Cohort Study. ¹⁶ The questions, which include parents being asked to report physical symptoms, were intended to detect the frequency with which parents had been feeling depressed, anxious, angry or impulsive.

Table 8 summarises the results for parents who report that they felt these things ‘a fair bit’ or ‘lots’. Around 21 per cent of parents reported getting ‘angry real quick’ and/or feeling ‘every thing is hard work’ a ‘fair bit’ or ‘lots’.

Supportive families

Having a strong support base is important for a primary care giver when raising their child. Research shows that mothers who have a strong support base, such as extended family and friends, may be more consistent in their parenting style and more nurturing towards their child (Rosario & McLoyd 2002). In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households, the extended family may play a much larger role in parenting than in non-Indigenous families (Raising Children Network 2008).

Parents were asked a series of questions about the family and friends who support them as well as their own personal and cultural resources. ¹⁷ Around 71 per cent of parents said that they have a strong family who help each other ‘always’, with a further 13 per cent of parents saying that their family helps each other ‘most times’ (see Table 9).

Similarly, the majority of parents (74 per cent) felt that they always had someone to talk to when they are sad or upset, or had an older person who always looked out for them (71 per cent). Most parents felt that they had ‘lots’ of, or a ‘fair few’ friends (48 per cent and 34 per cent respectively).

Notes: Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.

For some items the response categories differ from ‘fair bit’ and ‘lots’.

^a Only asked of Aboriginal /Torres Strait Islander participants.

^b Non-Indigenous parents were asked: you understand a lot about Aboriginal of Torres Strait Islander history and culture

Advice or information about children

Parents were also asked where they go for advice or information about their child. Overall, parents were most likely to obtain advice or information from family living elsewhere, with 739 parents (44 per cent) indicating this among their list of responses. The next most frequently reported source of advice or information was ‘nowhere, self-taught, learning from experience’ (34 per cent), followed by doctors (25 per cent). Although these were the two most frequent sources of advice for the total sample, there were variations across the different levels of relative isolation. For example, parents who lived in areas classified as having a high or extreme level of relative isolation less frequently sought advice from family members who live elsewhere, and more frequently were self-taught or relied upon their own experience relative to parents living in less isolated locations. Similarly, the use of doctors as a source of advice and information declined as the level of relative isolation increased. Full results are shown in Table 10.

Note: Parents were able to provide multiple responses, therefore the totals do not sum to 100.

Major life events

Findings from the Western Australia Aboriginal Child Health survey (Zubrick et al. 2005) suggest that the number of stressful life events that occur in a single period can impact on a family’s ability to cope. For example, Zubrick et al. (2005) found that where fewer than three stressful events occurred, around 15 per cent of 4 to 11 year-old children were at high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties. The percentage of children at risk of emotional or behavioural difficulties increased to 25 per cent for families who experienced between three and six stressful events, while the percentage of children at risk of difficulties rose to 42 per cent in families who experienced seven or more stressful events.

In Footprints in Time, parents were asked 14 questions about things that might cause significant stress, including whether they, or close family members, had been hurt, sick, had a family member or friend pass away, had lost or found work, been humbugged ¹⁸and whether the Study child or any other child had been badly scared by another’s behaviour. For many of these questions, a follow-up question about whether the event had happened to someone within or outside of the household was asked, which provides a way to gauge the direct impact of the major life event on the Study child.

Around one-third of parents (544) had fewer than three major life events occur in the previous 12 months.¹⁹ Nearly half of the parents (831) reported experiencing three to six major life events in the past year, and around one-fifth of parents (19 per cent) reported seven or more major life events in the previous year. The most commonly reported major life event was pregnancy or the birth of a child, which was experienced by 1,036 parents (62 per cent), followed by the death of a close family member or friend (50 per cent). The least common event was any of the Study child’s parents or carers losing a job (8 per cent). The frequency with which each different type of major life event occurred is shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11: Frequency of major life events

Figure 11 description: This graph depicts the frequency with which each different type of major life event occurred in the previous 12 months, with responses including those that happened to the responding parent, a close friend or a family member. The types of major life events shown are depicted on the vertical axis and the percentage of responses in each category are depicted on the horizontal axis.
Pregnant or had a baby: 61%
Close family member or friend passed away: 49%
Felt crowded where you lived, moved house or had housing problems: 39%
Badly hurt or sick: 34%
Got a job or returned to study: 32%
Serious worries about money: 30%
Been arrested, been in jail/prison or had problems with the police: 26%
Had an alcohol or drug problem: 25%
Study child or any other child of parent had been badly scared by other people’s behaviour: 23%
Been humbugged: 23%
Study child or any other child of parent has been involved in or upset by family arguments: 20%
Been mugged, robbed or assaulted: 13% Study child’s parents or carers have left because of a family split-up: 11%
Lost job: 8%

Safe communities

Environmental factors such as the level of neighbourhood safety and the strength of community bonds are influential in the raising of children (Silk et al. 2004). The majority of parents (84 per cent) in Footprints in Time felt that their community was ‘very safe’ (19 per cent), ‘quite safe’ (34 per cent) or ‘okay’ (31 per cent). Similarly, most parents (87 per cent) indicated that their community was ‘very good’ (30 per cent), ‘good’ (33 per cent) or ‘okay’ (24 per cent) for children.

Of the 222 parents who indicated that their community was ‘not so good’ (11 per cent) or ‘really bad’ (2 per cent), most reported it was due to alcohol issues, drugs, violence, crime or speeding cars and heavy traffic. Others mentioned problems such as wild dogs who might attack children, or broken and dirty playground equipment.

In terms of having good places for children to play in the community or neighbourhood, 858 parents (51 per cent) felt that there were ‘lots of parks and playgrounds’, or ‘a few places that are good’ for children to play. A further 353 parents (21 per cent) thought there were ‘some places that are okay’. However, 27 per cent of parents felt there were ‘not many’ or no places for children to play.

Feelings of unfair treatment or discrimination

Parents were asked whether they felt they had ever been subject to unfair treatment or discrimination. The majority of parents (69 per cent) did not believe they had ever been treated unfairly or discriminated against. Around 19 per cent of parents felt they had experienced unfair treatment or discrimination ‘a little bit’, and 10 per cent of parents felt that they had experienced discrimination a ‘fair bit’ (7 per cent) or ‘lots of times’ (5 per cent). Not all parents provided information about their feelings on this question, with 289 parents not answering this question.

Conclusion

The Wave 1 data of Footprints in Time provide a unique insight into the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. While it is not possible in this report to summarise all of the data items or to examine all of the relationships between variables, it is hoped that this preliminary overview will provide examples of the types of rich information collected in the study as well as helping to generate further, in-depth questions. Researchers are encouraged to apply for dataset access in order to answer those questions and further explore factors that may contribute to improving outcomes for Indigenous children.

15. Based on the percentage of parents who reported the items ‘always’ or ‘often’.
16. These questions came from the Strong Souls questionnaire developed to assess the emotional well-being of participants of the Aboriginal Birth Cohort study during the Wave 3 follow-up. Thomas A, Cairney, S, Gunthorpe, W, Paradies, Y, Sayers, S Strong Souls: the development and validation of a culturally appropriate tool for assessment of social and emotional wellbeing in Indigenous youth, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, in Press.
17. Ibid.
18. Humbugging refers to the practice of harassing family and friends for money.
19. These may also be indirectly experienced by the parent through their relationship with close family or friends who directly experienced the event.