Classroom Quality at Pre-kindergarten and Kindergarten and Children's Social Skills and Behavior Problems

The association between parental warmth and children's prosocial behaviour: A moderated mediation analysis

Prosocial behaviour is a bedrock of humane societies. Although previous studies have shown that parental style is an important contributing factor for children's prosocial behaviour, the psychological mechanism underlying this association in specific cultural background remains unclear. Based on the ecological systems theory, this study sought to explore the influence of parental warmth on children's prosocial behaviour, and the mediating effect of self-efficacy, as well as the moderating role of teachers' incentive evaluation in the link between self-efficacy and children's prosocial behaviour. This cross-sectional, survey-based study collected data from parents and teachers of 414 Chinese preschoolers (5-6 years old). Parents of these children finished questionnaires on the Chinese version of the short-form Egna minnen av. Barndoms uppfostran (s-EMBU-C), Child Behaviour Scale (CBS), and the revised General Self-efficacy Scale (GSES), while Incentive evaluation questionnaire was finished by their teachers. Results indicated that children who experience high parental warmth were more likely to act prosocially (b = 0.61, p < 0.001) and the association between parental warmth and prosocial behaviour was partially mediated by self-efficacy (indirect effect = 0.25, 95 % CI = [0.19, 0.32]). Besides, teachers' incentive evaluation moderated the link between self-efficacy and children's prosocial behaviour (b = 0.24, p < 0.001). Specifically, the effect of self-efficacy on prosocial behaviour was stronger for high teachers' incentive evaluation children than those with low teachers' incentive evaluation. These findings extend the existing understanding of the mechanism concerning the influence of parental warmth on prosocial behaviour in Chinese settings. The results revealed that interventions that could improve children's self-efficacy would be effective in accelerating their prosocial behaviour and schools played a crucial role in working with families to increase their self-efficacy at a young age. It should be noted that this study focused only on Chinese children of 5-6 years old, and the cross-sectional design means that the possibility of bidirectional effects could not be ruled out.

Resilience: supporting children's self-regulation in infant and toddler classrooms

Introduction

Resilience is a process that develops as a complex transaction as children experience and shape their social-ecological contexts. The dynamic development of self-regulation is an aspect of resilience that has received increased attention as a key mechanism predicting a variety of important short- and long-term outcomes. The current study examined how the self-regulation skills of infants and toddlers in a classroom could potentially shape classroom interactions and quality which, in turn, could potentially shape the development of self-regulation skills of the individual infants and toddlers enrolled in the classroom across an early childhood program year. The unique contribution of this study is the focus on a critical component of resilience, self-regulation, in an understudied age group, infants and toddlers, in an important and understudied context, the infant-toddler early childhood classroom.

Methods

Data are from a statewide evaluation of early childhood programs serving children birth to age 3 growing up in low-income contexts. Multi-level mediation models were employed to examine the mediation effect of classroom quality between classroom-level self-regulation and individual children's gain in self-regulation over a year.

Results

We found a significant indirect path. The results showed that classroom-level self-regulation skills demonstrated by infants and toddlers in the fall predicted higher levels of teachers' implementation of three important aspects of classroom quality - support for social-emotional, cognitive, and language development - in the winter. We also found that higher levels of teachers' support for social-emotional, cognitive, and language development associated with children's increased growth in self-regulation skills from fall to spring. The direct path from classroom-level self-regulation demonstrated in the fall to individual children's gain in self-regulation was not significant.

Discussion

These findings, unique due to the focus on infants and toddlers in a classroom context, are discussed within the larger body of existing self-regulation research conducted with older children and prevalent theories outlining developmental mechanisms. Implications for both infant-toddler classroom practices and future research are addressed. Relative to practice, our findings have implications for informing how the development of self-regulation, an important component of resilience, can be supported in the youngest children, infants and toddlers, specifically those enrolled in center-based classrooms serving young children growing up in families with low incomes. We focus on the need to improve the support and professional development of infant-toddler teachers which, in turn, can improve classroom quality and foster resilience in infants and toddlers. Relative to research, our use of a relatively new measure of infant-toddler classroom quality, the Quality of Care for Infants and Toddlers (QCIT), shows how this tool can expand infant-toddler research, a need in the current literature. Future research using different measures, designs, analytical strategies, and diverse samples and contexts is needed to further explain very young children's development of self-regulation, a critical component of resilience.

The effect of parental psychological control on children's peer interactions in China: the moderating role of teachers' emotional support

Background

Peer interactions are critical to young children's social development, and proximal-system has a direct influence on personal growth. The study aims to analyze the relationship between parental psychological control and young children's peer interactions, as well as the moderating role of teachers' emotional support in this association.

Methods

A total of 241 children aged 3-6 years, alongside their parents, and 27 teachers, participated in the study. Teachers reported children's peer interactions whilst parents reported their psychological control. The level of teachers' emotional support was co-coded by two researchers.

Results

The results of the study indicated that parental psychological control was significantly and negatively related to young children's peer interactions; teachers' emotional support was significantly and positively related to young children's peer interactions; the cross-level moderating effect validates our hypothesis that teachers' emotional support has a moderating effect between parental psychological control and young children's peer interactions, buffering the impact of parental psychological control on young children's peer interactions.

Conclusion

These findings expand our comprehension of the association between parental psychological control, teachers' emotional support, and young children's peer interactions, and provide guidance for integrating the components of the proximal system and devising interventions to establish a home-school harmony environment that fosters children's social development.

Assessing the effectiveness and the mechanisms of the Social-Emotional Prevention Program for Preschoolers: Findings from a universal school-based intervention

The Social-Emotional Prevention Program (SEP) encompasses a multifaceted approach (classroom curriculum, with teacher and parent training) intended to increase preschool children's social adjustment, as well as to reduce risk of emotional and behavioral problems. The present study's focus was on implementing the technology-assisted SEP version and was aimed at (a) investigating the program's effectiveness on children's social-emotional competencies and parental practices, as well as (b) testing the program's conceptual framework, with an emphasis on children's emotion regulation (ER) skills and parental emotion socialization practices as explanatory intervention mechanisms. A randomized-controlled trial (RCT) was conducted with five schools assigned to either the intervention or to a comparison condition (wait-list control). Structural equation models (SEM) and complier average causal effects (CACE) were conducted to evaluate SEP effectiveness on teacher- and parent-rated child outcomes (primary outcomes) and parenting behaviors (secondary outcomes). Findings from the present study indicated that (a) SEP fosters increased social-emotional competencies and increased use of adaptive ER strategies, with teacher and parent ratings converging to support these outcomes; (b) parental participation in the program increased the use of reappraisal and emotion coaching strategies; and (c) children's ER mediated the intervention's effect on social competence, whereas parental coaching and parental ER mediated SEP effects on children's ER. This study's findings suggest that the SEP may be an effective universal intervention for promoting preschoolers' social-emotional competence and may provide emerging evidence to support the program's hypothesized mechanisms of change.

Process Evaluation of Two Interventions to Improve Health Environments in Family Child Care Homes

Early care and education (ECE) environments influence children's lifelong health behaviors, growth, and development. Although the number of interventions to improve health in ECE environments is increasing, few have been designed for and tested in family child care homes (FCCHs). This study reports the process evaluation of two interventions to improve FCCH health environments, both part of Happy Healthy Homes, a matched-attention randomized-controlled intervention trial conducted in Oklahoma FCCHs. Participating child care providers received one of two multicomponent interventions: (a) an intervention focused on enhancing the quality of the nutrition environment, self-efficacy, and practices or (b) an intervention focused on improving providers' environmental health literacy, self-efficacy, and practices. Guided by "Implementation" constructs of the RE-AIM framework (i.e., reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance), intervention report forms and participant tracking were used to assess intervention dose delivered and interventionist-perceived challenges and successes to implementation. Interviews were conducted to obtain participant feedback after the intervention. Dose delivered was high for both interventions overall and across individual sessions, and provider feedback was positive. Implementation challenges and strengths identified for both interventions may be useful for further enhancing intervention appropriateness and success, particularly for interventions with FCCHs. Process evaluation findings indicate that the two Happy Healthy Home interventions can be conducted with high delivery and are well attended and considered to be valuable to FCCH providers.

Preschool instructional approaches and age 35 health and well-being

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The association between preschool instruction and age-35 well-being was examined.

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Child-initiated instruction was consistently associated with adult well-being.

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Primarily teacher-directed instruction wasn’t a robust predictor of adult outcomes.

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Prevention efforts should blend child-initiated and teacher-directed instruction.

In this study we sought to explore the association between preschool instructional approach and health and well-being at age 35 for a large sample of low-income children. Participants included 989 low-income, minority children who attended Child-Parent Center preschools as part of the Chicago Longitudinal Study from 1983 to 1985. Preschool curriculum was obtained from teacher reports and validated by program evaluators. These data were categorized by raters as: high teacher-directed and child-initiated; low teacher-directed and child-initiated; low teacher-directed and high child-initiated; or high teacher-directed and low child-initiated. Data on adult outcomes were obtained through surveys and administrative records. Those in preschool classrooms with high teacher-directed and child-initiated instruction had increased odds of having a livable wage (Odds Ratio(OR) = 2.02, p = 0.001), and decreased odds of felony arrest (OR = 0.39; p < 0.001), jail or incarceration (OR = 0.35, p = 0.001), and conviction (OR = 0.52, p = 0.002) at age 35 than those in low teacher-directed and child-initiated classrooms. Participants experiencing low teacher-directed and high child-initiated instruction had increased odds of having a livable wage (OR = 2.01, p = 0.002) and decreased odds of felony arrest (OR = 0.46; p < 0.001), jail or incarceration (OR = 0.53; p = 0.023), and conviction (OR = 0.57, p = 0.01) at age 35. Findings were consistent across many model specifications and adjustments for potential attrition bias. Child-initiated instruction in preschool is a robust predictor of adulthood well-being. Early education prevention efforts to establish a blend of child-initiated and teacher-directed teaching philosophies affords the opportunity for long-term impacts on economic and criminal outcomes in adulthood.

Examining the Effects of Changes in Classroom Quality on Within-Child Changes in Achievement and Behavioral Outcomes

This study examines whether changes in classroom quality predict within-child changes in achievement and behavioral problems in elementary school (ages spanning approximately 6-11 years old). Drawing on data from a longitudinal study of children in predominantly low-income, nonurban communities (n = 1,078), we relied on child fixed effects modeling, which controlled for stable factors that could bias the effects of classroom quality. In general, we found that changes in classroom quality had small and statistically nonsignificant effects on achievement and behavior. However, we found that moving into a high-quality classroom, particularly those rated as high in Classroom Organization, had positive effects on achievement and behavior for children with significant exposure to poverty in early life.

Language Skills, Behaviour Problems, and Classroom Emotional Support among Preschool Children from Low-income Families

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between language skills and behavioural problems and the potential moderating role of the quality of classroom emotional support in this relationship among 242 preschool children from low-income families. The Preschool Language Scale-5 was administered individually to each child. The quality of classroom emotional support was measured using the Emotional Support domain of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System for Pre-Kindergarten. Teachers and parents completed the Child Behaviour Checklist for Ages 1½-5. Results indicated the inverse relationship between language skills and behaviour problems varied by the level of classroom emotional support provided by teachers. Specifically, children with lower language skills exhibited higher levels of behaviour problems in classrooms where teachers provided lower levels of emotional support. Findings from this study have important implications for enhancing teachers' emotional support aimed at children with lower language skills and for future research.

Linking Formal Child Care Characteristics to Children's Socioemotional Well-Being: A Comparative Perspective

Most research on formal child care and children's outcomes has focused on single countries. We, however, contend that policy context may moderate the association between formal child care characteristics and children's socioemotional well-being. We examined this by comparing the Netherlands, Finland and the UK; three countries that differ regarding family policies. Of these three countries, Finland was recently ranked highest (ranked 1st) with regards to quality of child care in a recent analysis by the Economist, followed by the UK (ranked 3rd) and then the Netherlands (ranked 7th). We hypothesized that children who attend child-care settings in countries with higher-quality formal child-care provision would generally show better socioemotional outcomes. Data from the comparative 'Families 24/7' survey were used, including 990 parents with children aged 0-12. We distinguished between two age groups in our analysis. Results indicated that, compared to the UK, longer hours in formal care were less beneficial in the Netherlands. Furthermore, spending time in formal care during nonstandard hours was more harmful for children in Finland compared to the UK. Lastly, receiving care from multiple caregivers was more disruptive for British children than for Dutch children. No differences were found between Finland and the Netherlands.