Day care quality, family and child characteristics and socioemotional development

The study investigated effects of day care quality in interaction with child and family characteristics on socioemotional development concurrently at 29 months and longitudinally at 4 years. By international standards, the study was performed in high-quality day care settings and in a fairly homogeneous group of well-functioning families. In a group of 52 children (M day care EXPERIENCE = 12.6 months at the age of 29 months), main effects of day care quality and effects due to interactions between such quality and the background characteristics of SES, home environment quality, gender, and infant manageability were studied. Socioemotional development was studied both in terms of children's problems (externalizing and internalizing) and positive aspects of functioning (positive emotional expressions and ego strength/effectance). The results showed a main effect of day care quality on expressions of positive emotions, and interactive effects were demonstrated for several of the other indicators of socioemotional functioning. Compensatory effects of high-quality care on externalizing behaviors for children from less advantaged homes as well as positive effects on boys' internalizing problems and ego strength/effectance were among the findings. Thus, using culturally relevant measures of day care quality, clear influences can be demonstrated even in a culture with a fairly uniform and high standard of care.     

Promoting the Emotional Development of Preschoolers

This paper looks at evidence pertaining to the emotional development of preschoolers. The issues talked about include a synopsis of emotional expression, emotional understanding, the regulation of emotions, and their developmental significance. Furthermore, the role of the caregiver–child relationship as indicated by the security of attachment is provided. It is argued that caregivers influence the emotional development of children as they model, coach, and contingently respond to children. The implications of emotional development and the quality of the caregiver–child relationship for teachers as they pertain to affective displays, negotiation skills, affect regulation, and expectancies of children are discussed. Finally, some strategies for enhancing emotional development are suggested.     

Emotional and Behavioral Predictors of Preschool Peer Ratings

It was predicted that social cognitive, behavioral, and affective aspects of young children's social development would predict stable peer ratings of their likability. Measures of likability, emotion knowledge, prosocial and aggressive behavior, peer competence, and expressed emotions (happy and angry) were obtained for 65 subjects (mean age = 44 months). Sociometric ratings, particularly negative, were stable over 1- and 9-month time periods. Correlational analyses showed that emotion knowledge and prosocial behavior were direct predictors of likability. Prosocial behavior mediated the relations of gender and expressed emotions with likability (i.e., gender and expressed emotions were each related to prosocial behavior, and prosocial behavior was related to likability, but neither gender nor expressed emotions were related to likability with prosocial behavior partialled out). Knowledge of emotional situations similarly mediated the age-likability relation. Results uphold the early development of stable peer reputations and the hypothesized centrality of emotion-related predictors of likability.     

Long-Term Relations Between Children’s Language,the Home Literacy Environment,and Socioemotional Development From Ages 3 to 8

Research Findings: This study investigated the long-term interrelations among children’s language competencies, their home literacy environment (HLE), and 3 aspects of socioemotional development from ages 3 to 8, controlling for characteristics of the child and family. For this sample of 547 typically developing German children, parents and teachers reported on cooperative behavior, physical aggression, and emotional self-regulation. Language was assessed using established test instruments. HLE was operationalized by the number of books in the household, the frequency of shared book reading, and an observation during shared book reading. Path analyses supported effects of language and HLE at age 3 on all 3 indicators of socioemotional development over the 5-year period. An additional mediational analysis revealed different patterns of results depending on the aspect of socioemotional competency under study. Although the effect of early language and HLE at age 3 on cooperative and (low) aggressive behavior at age 8 was partially mediated by language at age 5, children’s early language at age 3 was the best predictor of the development of emotional self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Findings identify a rich HLE and proper language skills as protective factors for socioemotional development in not-at-risk children; these factors should be further established in social skills training.     

Emotional development in children with different attachment histories: the first three years

The development of fear, anger, and joy was examined in 112 children using a longitudinal design. Children were observed at 9, 14, 22, and 33 months in standard laboratory episodes designed to elicit fear, anger, or joy. At 14 months, mother-child attachment was assessed in the Strange Situation. The attachment groups (avoidant, secure, resistant, and disorganized/unclassifiable) differed in the trajectories of emotional development, with the differences first apparent at 14 months of age. Resistant children were the most fearful and least joyful, and fear was their strongest emotion. More than secure children, they responded with distress even in episodes designed to elicit joy. When examined longitudinally, over the second and third years, secure children became significantly less angry. In contrast, insecure children's negative emotions increased: Avoidant children became more fearful, resistant children became less joyful, and disorganized/unclassifiable children became more angry. Higher attachment security uniquely predicted that at 33 months, children would show less fear and anger in episodes designed to elicit fear and anger, and less distress in episodes designed to elicit joy, even in conservative regression analyses controlling for all the earlier emotion scores.     

Disorganized Infant Attachment Classification and Maternal Psychosocial Problems as Predictors of Hostile-Aggressive Behavior in the Preschool Classroom

This study of 62 lowincome families examined the relation between maternal and infant measures assessed at 18 months infant age and child behavior problems at age 5 as rated by preschool teachers. The infancy assessments included measures of mother-infant interaction, maternal psychosocial problems, infant cognitive development, and infant attachment security, including the disorganized/disoriented classification. The strongest single predictor of deviant levels of hostile behavior toward peers in the classroom was earlier disorganized/disoriented attachment status, with 71% of hostile preschoolers classified as disorganized in their attachment relationships in infancy. Maternal psychosocial problems independently predicted hostile aggressions in preschool and combined additively with infant attachment security in prediction. Results are discussed in relation to the asymmetry of forward and backward prediction that characterized the findings and in relation to the potential significance of disorganized attachment behavior as a precursor to later maladaptation.     

Gender-Specific Linkages of Affective Social Competence With Peer Relations in Preschool Children

Research Findings: We examined whether affective social competence, or the ability to effectively send and receive emotional signals and to manage one's own emotional experience, contributes to preschool children's peer relations. Forty-two previously unacquainted preschoolers were observed while participating in a week-long playschool. Greater nonstereotypical emotion knowledge was related to girls' popularity and boys' likelihood of having a reciprocal friendship. Girls with greater skill at sending emotional communications and managing emotions were more likely to have a reciprocal friendship. Boys who were better at managing emotions compared to others in their group were less popular. The role of social context in the influence of affective social competence on children's peer relations is discussed. Practice or Policy: Results have implications for early childhood educators' promotion of children's socioemotional skills.     

Patterns of Close Relationships and Socioemotional and Academic Adjustment Among School‐Age Children with Learning Disabilities

This study examined patterns of close relationships among school‐age children with learning disabilities (LD) as manifested in their attachment style, their self‐perceived loneliness, their sense of coherence, and teacher ratings of their academic functioning. In line with resilience theory, this study also aimed to further explore predictors of positive adjustment for children with LD. The sample comprised 98 children with LD from regular classes in four Israeli public elementary schools, and 98 non‐LD children from the same classes. Significant group differences emerged in attachment styles and adjustment. Attachment style significantly correlated with socioemotional adjustment but not with academic functioning. In addition, a subgroup of resilient children emerged among the LD children. Discussion focused on the value of attachment patterns for understanding social and emotional adjustment among school‐age children with LD.     

Effects of Day-Care on Cognitive and Socioemotional Competence of Thirteen-Year-Old Swedish Schoolchildren

This is a follow-up study of an earlier one in which positive effects of early day-care experience were found on children's cognitive and socioemotional competence at age 8. 128 children were followed from their first year of life. At 8 and 13 years of age, 92% and 89% of the children, respectively, remained in the study. Most children could be classified according to age at first entry into day-care. Cognitive and socioemotional competence was rated by the children's classroom teachers. Hierarchical regression and path analyses were used in the statistical treatment of the data. It was possible to trace independent positive effects of age of entry into day-care as far as age 13. Children entering center care or family day-care before age 1 generally performed better in school when 8 and 13 years old and received more positive ratings from their teachers on several socioemotional variables. The path analyses indicated the following causal model: family characteristics, such as type of family, family's socioemotional status, and mother's educational level, influence the time of first entry into day-care. This variable, in turn, has consequences for children's competence at 8 and/or 13 years of age even after controlling for home background, child gender, and intelligence, which, of course, have their own effects. The effect of socioeconomic status was often mediated through age of entry into day-care.     

Gender-Specific Linkages of Affective Social Competence With Peer Relations in Preschool Children

Research Findings: We examined whether affective social competence, or the ability to effectively send and receive emotional signals and to manage one's own emotional experience, contributes to preschool children's peer relations. Forty-two previously unacquainted preschoolers were observed while participating in a week-long playschool. Greater nonstereotypical emotion knowledge was related to girls' popularity and boys' likelihood of having a reciprocal friendship. Girls with greater skill at sending emotional communications and managing emotions were more likely to have a reciprocal friendship. Boys who were better at managing emotions compared to others in their group were less popular. The role of social context in the influence of affective social competence on children's peer relations is discussed. Practice or Policy: Results have implications for early childhood educators' promotion of children's socioemotional skills.     

Emotional Competence and Early School Adjustment: A Study of Preschoolers at Risk

This short-term longitudinal study examined whether emotion regulation and emotion understanding made unique contributions towards at-risk preschoolers' classroom adaptation. To address this question, we assessed children's emotion regulation and their understanding of emotions in both self (self-awareness, emotion coping) and in others (emotion recognition, affective perspective taking, situation knowledge). Participants were 49 children (22 boys and 27 girls) who attended a Head Start program for low-income children. Seventy percent of this sample was Caucasian, with the remainder being of Latino, African American or biracial ethnicity. Emotion regulation at the start of the school year was associated with school adjustment at year's end, whereas early emotional lability/negativity predicted poorer outcomes. Children who made a smooth adjustment to preschool also were better able to take another person's affective perspective and to identify situations that would provoke different emotional responses. Emotion regulation and understanding made unique contributions towards school adjustment, even when controlling for potential confounds, including behavior problems and verbal abilities. Teachers appeared to influence children's emotional competence by serving an important regulatory function, especially for older preschoolers at-risk.     

Predictors of Behavior Problems in Preschool Children of Inner-City Afro-American and Puerto Rican Adolescent Mothers

Maternal reports on the Child Behavior Checklist/2-3 (CBCL/2-3) were used to evaluate child, maternal, and environmental predictors of behavior problems in 83 preschool children of disadvantaged adolescent mothers. CBCL/2-3 scores correlated modestly with independent ratings of child difficult behaviors observed in videotaped mother-child play interactions. 13% of children had scores in the clinical range. Significant correlations were consistently found between CBCL/2-3 ratings and maternal depressive symptoms, social supports, and life stress—assessed 3 times during the first year postpartum. In hierarchical regression analyses, maternal depressive symptoms, residence with the adolescent's mother, and perceived emotional support from friends contributed most to the explained variance. A significant ethnicity and child gender interaction term also suggested that African American mothers of male children reported more behavioral problems. Findings evidence the heterogeneity of outcomes for children of disadvantaged adolescent mothers but also demonstrate how correlates of poverty negatively affect their socioemotional development.     

School readiness of maltreated preschoolers and later school achievement: The role of emotion regulation,language, and context

Guided by bio-ecological theory, this study aimed to: (1) identify heterogeneity in the developmental patterns of emotion regulation for maltreated preschool-aged children; (2) examine the role of gender, language, placement instability, cognitive stimulation, and emotional support on patterns of stability and change of emotion regulation over time; and (3) elucidate the role of emotion regulation/dysregulation patterns on later academic achievement. This study utilized data from the first cohort of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Results using LCA and LTA models indicated stability and change in emotionally regulated vs. emotionally dysregulated latent classes across 4, 5, and 6 ½ years of age. Placement instability significantly increased the likelihood of being classified as emotionally dysregulated at wave 1. Moreover, children classified as emotionally dysregulated by age 6 ½ scored significantly lower than children who were classified as emotionally regulated on measures of reading and math achievement by age 10. Based on these findings, placement stability at first contact with CPS should be promoted in order to prevent cascading negative effects on emotion regulation. Additionally, children who are more emotionally dysregulated by the time they transition to formal schooling should receive increased socioemotional and socioemotional learning supports.     

Emotion socialization and expressive development in preterm and full-term infants

The expressive behaviors of full-term and preterm infants and their mothers were examined during face-to-face interaction when the infants were approximately 2 1/2, 5, and 7 1/2 months old. Videotapes of the sessions were coded on a second-to-second basis using Izard's discrete emotion coding system. Overall, infants showed a linear increase in positive effect, especially interest and joy, and a corresponding decrease in negative affect, especially pain and knit brow, with age; decrease in negative affect was accounted for largely by the preterm infants. In terms of maternal responses, there was an increase in contingent responding to infant interest expressions and a decrease in contingent responding to infant pain expressions over time, especially in the case of the preterm infant. The data set as a whole was examined further to establish the directionality of influence between mothers and infants in change patterns over time. There was evidence of learning effects in infants as a function of maternal modeling and contingency patterns. Anomalies in maternal responses to preterm infant affect expressions were observed. Mothers of these infants displayed significantly less matching or imitation of their infant's facial expressions, showed random rather than contingent responsiveness to sadness, and a significant ignoring response to infant anger. These differences were attributed to differences in gazing patterns and negative emotion expression in preterm infants. The results are discussed within a framework of emotion socialization that recognizes bidirectionality of influence in the emotional patterns of mothers and infants.     

Gender Differences in Social Mastery Motivation and Its Relationships to Vocabulary Knowledge,Behavioral Self-Regulation,and Socioemotional Skills

The present study investigated gender differences in social mastery motivation, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral self-regulation, and socioemotional skills and examined the relationships among this knowledge and these skills by gender. Participants were 134 Chinese children (68 boys, M age = 3.80; 66 girls, M age = 3.89) and their parents recruited through local kindergartens’ parent groups. The children were administered measures of social mastery motivation, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral self-regulation, and nonverbal intelligence. Parents reported their education level and children’s socioemotional skills. Research Findings: Results revealed that boys exhibited more social mastery interactions than girls, and girls showed better behavioral self-regulation and socioemotional skills than boys. Girls with higher social mastery interaction frequency demonstrated better vocabulary knowledge and socioemotional skills, whereas boys with higher social mastery interaction frequency showed lower behavioral self-regulation. Boys, who showed more positive affect during social mastery interactions, tended to have better expressive vocabulary, which facilitated their behavioral self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Findings highlight social mastery motivation as a potential factor that facilitates children’s early development, but it may contribute to boys and girls in different ways.     

Infants in group care: Patterns of despair and detachment

Ninety nine infants were observed at entry into child care and at 3-month intervals during the first 6 months. We examined changes in relations among indices of adjustment and caregiver behaviors and which entry variables predict patterns of 6-month adjustment. Toy play shows no systematic relation with infant affective behavior at entry, yet 6 months later it is associated with positive affect and reduced social involvement. Caregiver interaction also changes; after 6 months expressive children receive more and different forms of attention than do nonexpressive children. Bowlby's (1969) account of institutionalized infants was used to identify different patterns of adjustment. Despair-like infants were distressed, immobilized, and self-soothing at entry. Infants who were detachment-like (i.e., object centered, happy, and socially unengaged after 6 months) received less attention from caregivers at entry. Some 6-month patterns have their roots in temperament dispositions, with differential outcomes determined largely by caregiver responsiveness.     

Language development in internationally adopted children: a special case of early second language learning

The French language development of children adopted (n=24) from China was compared with that of control children matched for socioeconomic status, sex, and age. The children were assessed at 50 months of age, on average, and 16 months later. The initial assessment revealed that the 2 groups did not differ with respect to socioemotional adjustment or intellectual abilities. However, the adopted children's expressive language skills were significantly lower than those of the nonadopted children at both assessments. The receptive language skills were also significantly weaker for the adopted children at the second assessment. The results are discussed in terms of possible early age-of-acquisition effects that might affect adopted children's ability to acquire a second first language.     

Emotional Behavior Problems,Parent Emotion Socialization,and Gender as Determinants of Teacher–Child Closeness

Research Findings: Drawing from a diverse community sample of 89 children, ages 4–6, their primary caregivers and teachers, this study examined the interplay of child emotional behavior problems, parent emotion socialization practices, and gender in predicting teacher-child closeness. Teachers reported on perceptions of closeness with children. Parents and teachers reported on children’s emotional behavior problems, as indexed by overanxious behavior, overt, and relational aggression. Regression models revealed that higher relational aggression related to closer teacher-child relationships for all children of parents who employed minimization as an emotion socialization practice. Similarly, higher overt aggression related to closer teacher-child relationships for girls who experienced parent minimization. An analogous pattern of results emerged, such that lower parent emotional support buffered girls against the negative effects of higher relational aggression on teacher-child closeness, whereas higher parent emotional support related to lower levels of closeness for these girls. These findings contradict prior research linking supportive emotion socialization practices (e.g., empathy, comforting) to socioemotional competence and unsupportive practices (e.g., minimization, punishment) to poor school adjustment. Practice or Policy: Findings have implications for improving children’s classroom experience by identifying parent emotion socialization and gender as contexts for understanding child emotional behavior problems in relation to teacher-child closeness.     

Who Is the Tattletale? Linking Individual Differences in Socioemotional Competence and Anxiety to Tattling Behavior and Attitudes in Young Children

Although tattling is a common practice among young children, there is little systematic research about its socioemotional correlates. The current study focused on children’s tattling between the ages of 5 and 7, assessing both their explicit attitudes toward tattling and their actual reporting of a transgression and relating them to individual differences in socioemotional competence and trait anxiety. Research Findings: About half of the children reported an adult’s transgression freely or when generally prompted about the event, whereas the other half either reported only when confronted with a directly incriminatory question or completely concealed the adult’s transgression. There was a minor congruence between the actual tattling behavior and children’s explicit attitudes toward tattling (obligation to report a major transgression), measured via their reaction to a series of vignettes. A favorable attitude toward tattling was positively related to children’s ability to recognize basic emotions and their external causes, yet it was negatively associated with the understanding of more complex components, such as the possibility of hiding an emotion. Moreover, tattling behavior was negatively related to understanding internally (belief-based) generated emotions and positively related to individual levels of anxiety. Practice or Policy: Educational practices should take into account individual differences in children’s socioemotional development when relating to their tattling behaviors, preferably decreasing the amount of ambivalence a child experiences in this situation.     

The Impact of Economic Hardship on Black Families and Children: Psychological Distress, Parenting, and Socioemotional Development

Family processes affecting the socioemotional functioning of children living in poor families and families experiencing economic decline are reviewed. Black children are of primary interest in the article because they experience disproportionate shares of the burden of poverty and economic loss and are at substantially higher risk than white children of experiencing attendant socioemotional problems. It is argued that (a) poverty and economic loss diminish the capacity for supportive, consistent, and involved parenting and render parents more vulnerable to the debilitating effects of negative life events, (b) a major mediator of the link between economic hardship and parenting behavior is psychological distress deriving from an excess of negative life events, undesirable chronic conditions, and the absence and disruption of marital bonds, (c) economic hardship adversely affects children's socioemotional functioning in part through its impact on the parent's behavior toward the child, and (d) father-child relations under conditions of economic hardship depend on the quality of relations between the mother and father. The extent to which psychological distress is a source of race differences in parenting behavior is considered. Finally, attention is given to the mechanisms by which parents' social networks reduce emotional strain, lessen the tendency toward punitive, coercive, and inconsistent parenting behavior, and, in turn, foster positive socioemotional development in economically deprived children.