Research Findings: Marginal food security is less studied relative to food insecurity but may also have adverse effects on family outcomes. The present study examined whether parental stress mediated ...the relationship between marginal food security (MFS) and preschool-aged children's observed self-regulation at three early education centers located in two urban cities in a Midwestern state. Primary caregivers (81.3% mothers) completed an adapted version of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form and a two-question screener from the USDA Annual Food Security Survey. Children's aged 37-70 months, M= 54, SD = 6.46; 57% boys) self-regulation skills were directly assessed. Approximately one-third (39.75%) of the present sample were considered MFS, as they reported being "worried that food would not last" in the past 12 months. MFS families had significantly higher levels of parental stress than food secure families. Additionally, MFS indirectly affects children's observed self-regulation skills through parental stress, even after controlling for the effect of child age, sex, and family structure. Practice or Policy: Implications of this finding for early intervention and food support programs are discussed.
•CoC associated with higher teacher ratings of child self-control, initiative, and attachment while in infant-toddler rooms.•CoC associated with fewer teacher-rated behavioral concerns while children ...were enrolled in infant-toddler classrooms.•No consistent relation of CoC with preschool teachers’ ratings of self-control, initiative, attachment or language at age 3.•Findings do not provide clear support for CoC, but suggest a need for additional research.•Future research needed to fully examine associations with child outcomes and impacts on teachers, families, and peers.
Ensuring that young children, especially infants and toddlers, experience consistency in child care providers over time is a practice endorsed by multiple professional organizations. This practice, commonly referred to as continuity of care (CoC), is recommended for center-based group settings to provide infants and toddlers with the sensitive, responsive care needed to promote early development. Despite widespread endorsement, there has been limited empirical examination of CoC. This study examines the extent to which CoC experienced in infant-toddler center-based care is associated with social-emotional and language development. Associations of CoC with children’s social-emotional development during the infant-toddler period and with later social-emotional and language outcomes at age 3 were investigated in a large sample of children attending high-quality early childhood programs designed for young children growing up in poverty. During the infant-toddler years, CoC was related to higher teacher ratings of self-control, initiative, and attachment, and lower ratings of behavior concerns. In addition, a classroom quality×CoC interaction indicated that CoC differences were larger in higher, than lower, quality infant-toddler classrooms. In contrast, CoC in infant-toddler classrooms was not related to rates of change in teacher ratings of social skills during the infant-toddler years nor to children’s vocabulary development or ratings of social skills after they transitioned to preschool. Neither were there quality×CoC interactions at preschool. These findings do not provide clear support for the current widespread recommendations for CoC, but suggest a need for additional research. The need for future research to more fully understand associations with child outcomes as well as to examine potential impacts of CoC on teachers, families, and peers is highlighted.
The current study examined the associations between low‐income preschool children's temperament (reactive and regulatory) and their relationships with parents and teachers. In particular, we focused ...on the moderating role of regulatory temperament on reactive temperament in the prediction of closeness and conflict with parents and teachers. Two hundred ninety‐one children (M = 53.88 months, SD = 6.44 months), their parents, and teachers from 3 different preschools serving low‐income children in 2 midwestern cities in the United States participated. Parents reported on temperament and parent–child relationships, and teachers reported on teacher–child relationships. Hierarchical regression models using SAS PROC MIXED were employed to allow for nesting of children within classrooms. After controlling for child age, gender, ethnicity, and parent education, children's reactive temperament was negatively associated with parent–child closeness and positively associated with parent–child conflict and teacher–child conflict. Children's regulatory temperament was positively related to teacher–child closeness and negatively associated with teacher–child conflict. Regulatory temperament moderated the association between reactive temperament and teacher–child closeness. These findings suggest that although reactive temperament potentially undermines closeness in relationships with teachers, regulatory temperament can buffer the influence of reactive temperament on teacher–child closeness.
Highlights
This study examined the association between children's temperament and their relationships with parents and teachers.
Reactive temperament was positively associated with parent/teacher–child conflict and negatively associated with parent–child closeness. Regulatory temperament was a moderator for the association between reactive temperament and teacher–child closeness.
Improving children's regulatory temperament may be helpful for children with the reactive temperament to have better social relationships with their teachers.
•Even in a highly resourced early childhood program, staff turnover was 30% annually.•Survival analysis allowed for quantifying the timing of turnover.•Predictors of staying were a positive work ...environment and teaching infants/toddlers.•Teaching staff with more years of education were more likely to leave.•Some predictors of staying were different for teachers compared to assistants/aides.
This study of a large sample of classroom teaching staff at 23 early childhood schools across the U.S. serving children birth to age 5 used survival analysis to investigate both the timing of staff turnover and the characteristics associated with turnover. The data were collected from over 2,000 teachers, assistant teachers and aides between 2007 and 2019. Survival analysis allowed for investigation of both the timing of staff turnover and the time-varying and time-invariant characteristics associated with turnover. Over time, staff who were more positive about their work environment, had more years of teaching experience, taught in infant-toddler classrooms, or identified as Black were more likely to stay, whereas staff who had more years of education were more likely to leave. The probability of leaving was greatest in the first 2 to 3 years of employment. Some predictors of retention differed between lead teachers and assistants/aides, for example, the risk of leaving was greater for teachers with depressive symptoms but not for assistants/aides. While the results point to some areas where school leaders can effect practice changes to improve retention, the findings point to multiple areas where systemic and policy changes may be needed to reduce turnover.
We examined the associations among parental emotion socialization, and children's emotion regulation and attachment to parents. In particular, we examined the moderating role of parental emotion ...socialization in the relationship between children's emotion regulation and attachment to
parents. Participants were 78 Turkish children (49 boys) aged from 60 to 77 months and their parents. Parents reported on the socialization strategies they used for their children's emotions and on their children's emotion regulation, and we assessed children's attachment to parents via the
Doll Story Completion Task. Results revealed that parents' minimization reaction to children's emotions moderated the association between children's emotion regulation and attachment to parents. When parents' response was punitive, children with poor emotion regulation displayed stronger attachment
to parents than children with robust emotion regulation did. In addition, girls had a more secure attachment to parents than boys did. Our results highlight the importance of children's emotion regulation and parental emotion socialization for children's secure early attachment to parents.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, FSPLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The current study is an examination of the teacher–child relationships (closeness and conflict) as a predictor of children’s self-regulation in preschool, with a focus on child gender as moderator of ...associations between teacher–child relationships and children’s self-regulation. Participants were 291 low-income children (159 males; 37–70 months old) in the United States and 362 low-income children (165 males; 42–79 months) in Turkey, and their teachers. Teacher–child relationship was assessed via teacher-report and children’s self-regulation was assessed by independent researchers via structured tasks. Gender moderated the association between teacher–child conflict and self-regulation in children from the U.S. such that boys with lower levels of teacher–child conflict scored higher in self-regulation than boys who had higher levels of conflict with their teachers. Teacher–child conflict in the U.S. and teacher–child closeness in Turkey were significantly associated with children’s self-regulation. Limitations of the current study and future directions are also discussed.
Children in the United States experience higher rates of poverty than any other age group, including elderly adults and the poverty rate of young children (0-5 years) is considerably higher than that ...of older children (Proctor et al., 2016). There is an extensive body of research examining familial socioeconomic status (SES) and the influence on the skills and behaviors of young children; however, common key indicators of family SES may not fully depict the ways in which children living in poverty/low-income homes are influenced by economic disadvantage. The focus of the current study is to explore the ways in which proximal and distal familial factors are predictive of children’s inhibitory control and social-emotional skills to provide a more complete picture of how economic disadvantage affects young children.The data source for the current study comes from The Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2014 and includes preschool aged children (M=57.87, SD=5.36) to investigate two research aims: to understand how proximal and distal factors are associated with preschool children’s inhibitory control and social-emotional skills; and to compare proximal and distal factors in preschool children’s household environment to traditional SES indices to gain greater understanding of the economic well-being indicators associated with school readiness. Three main findings emerged: (1) proximal variables were not found to fit a single, overarching proximal factor but remained independent variables; however, four distinct distal factors were revealed; (2) parent depression was not associated with children’s inhibitory control or social skill outcomes and (3) marital status predicted both observed and teacher reported child outcomes. Nonetheless, the findings from the current study provide evidence for considering the ways in which varying aspects of factors associated with poverty more negatively influence child outcomes than income alone.
The demographic composition in the United States has undergone shifts due to increasing immigration. This may change the way we think about families and children in the United States, and it is ...important to include immigrant families in parenting research. This study examined the relations between parent-child relationships and preschool-aged children's social-emotional functioning in the context of low-income families in the United States. We also explored how the relations between the two were moderated by parental nativity, specifically focusing on parents born in the United States and those who were born in Mexico and emigrated to the United States. The sample included 199 preschool children enrolled in Educare/Head Start programs and their parents, with 134 of the parents born in the United States and 65 born in Mexico. Parents reported parent-child closeness and conflict. Teachers reported children's social-emotional strengths and behavioral concerns. Assessors evaluated children's executive function and behavior regulation using structured tasks. The results showed that more parent-child conflict was related to more behavioral concerns and lower levels of executive function among children with U.S.-born parents but not among those with Mexico-born parents. The study suggests that the role of parenting in child social-emotional functioning may vary depending on cultural backgrounds among low-income families.
Research Findings: Strong relationships among children, families, and early care and education (ECE) providers are key to quality infant-toddler care. These relationships are shaped during the ...initial transition period to group care. We used a mixed methods approach to (a) assess maternal perspectives on the transition to group care, (b) explore mothers' perceptions of factors that made for easy or difficult transitions, and (c) examine associations between maternal and child characteristics and the ease of the transition. Through qualitative interviews, mothers identified factors that played a role in their child's transition, including the child's age, the ECE provider's support, and the number of transitions the child experienced. For mothers, an easy transition was characterized by ease of child adjustment to group care, comfort with nonparental care and returning to work, and being able to exercise some control over the transition. Quantitative analyses revealed that an easy child transition was associated with younger child age, low maternal distress reactions to child distress, and low child social fearfulness. Higher maternal depressive symptoms and maternal distress reactions to child distress were associated with mothers having a difficult transition. Practice or Policy: Implications of the findings for ECE provider training and ECE policy development related to transitions are discussed.
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