Grandmaternal and maternal ethnotheories about early child care.

Parenting ethnotheories represent an organized set of ideas about parents, children, and development that are shared by members of cultural groups. Because these ideas and beliefs reflect cultural models and serve as representational frameworks for parenting strategies, they need to change with historical time. To analyze these changes, the authors interviewed mothers and grandmothers of 3-month-old infants in 4 different cultural environments--urban German middle-class families (41 mothers, 22 grandmothers), urban Indian middleclass families (36 mothers, 12 grandmothers), rural Cameroonian Nso families (29 mothers, 20 grandmothers), and urban Cameroonian Nso families (28 mothers, 12 grandmothers)--in regard to their ideas about infant care. The interviews were analyzed according to content and discourse style. The results reveal that there is not only transmission of parental beliefs from one generation to the next but also variation in adaptation to changing environments. Although the global trend toward more independent cultural models of parenting is confirmed, the magnitude of change varies across the different cultural environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between family predictors and child outcomes: Are they weaker for children in child care?

Studies suggesting that family factors predict developmental outcomes more strongly for children reared principally by their parents than those with extensive early child-care experience stimulated the examination of the differential prediction of child outcomes using a subsample of families participating in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care. A variety of factors were used to predict development of children who averaged 30 hr of nonparental care per week for each month of their lives and for those who never experienced more than 10 hr of care per week by someone other than their mothers. Multivariate analyses provided no evidence that family factors predicted outcomes differentially for these 2 groups, though exploratory analyses revealed several instances of differential prediction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between parental control and warmth and child well-being in stepfamilies.

Examined type-of-stepfamily differences in child well-being and parenting behaviors and how child well-being in stepfamilies relates to parenting behaviors. Data were drawn from the National Survey of Families and Households (J. A. Sweet et al, 1988) and included fathers and mothers in 448 stepfather, 76 stepmother, and 41 complex stepfamilies. Biological parents in stepfamilies perceived themselves as having higher quality relationships with their children than stepparents reported having with their stepchildren. Although stepfathers reported behaving less positively toward their children than did other fathers, stepmothers reported responding as positively to their stepchildren as did biological mothers in stepfamilies. In general, child well-being was positively related to perceptions of parental warmth. The relations between parental control and child well-being varied for different dimensions of well-being and in different types of stepfamilies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age and schooling effects on emergent literacy and early reading skills.

This study examined the effects of age and schooling on emergent literacy and early reading skills of 337 children from low-income backgrounds. Children were followed longitudinally from the end of Head Start to the end of 1st grade. A subset of the sample (n?=?183) was followed through the end of 2nd grade. The oldest children in preschool and kindergarten had significantly stronger emergent literacy skills than classmates who were younger by 10 months. These differences did not translate to differences in reading skill at the end of 1st or 2nd grade. Children who began school a year earlier than same-age peers outperformed these peers on measures of both emergent literacy skills and early reading skills. The impact of a year of schooling on emergent literacy skills was 1.7 times greater than the impact of other processes associated with age. The impact of a year of schooling on early reading was 4.3 times stronger than the effect of age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal employment and child care.

Highlights selected demographic, social, and economic forces related to the increase in employment of women and notes the benefits and stresses experienced by employed mothers. These include difficulties associated with finding and affording good day care, concerns about the effects of maternal employment and day care on children, and the difficulties frequently inherent in managing the 2 full-time jobs of employment and motherhood. Suggestions for mental health professionals who work with employed mothers are presented: (1) focus on the woman's family and community systems that may be the source of problems, (2) assist the woman in identifying and priority-rating her multiple demands, and (3) inform individuals about potential stresses and practical problem-solving techniques. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

American child care today.

Child care has 2 purposes: mothers' employment and children's development. These are conflicting goals, because the first focuses on the quantity and affordability of child care whereas the second favors expensive quality services. Affordable child care fosters maternal employment and gender equality. With welfare reform demanding more child-care places to move mothers from welfare to work, the pressure for larger quantities of child care is great. Demanding regulations raise the quality of care and give more assurance of children's well-being, but they also increase the cost. More expensive regulations price more working parents out of licensed care and force them to use unregulated home care. Widely varying qualities of child care have been shown to have only small effects on children's current development and no demonstrated long-term impact, except on disadvantaged children, whose homes put them at developmental risk. Parents have far greater impact on their children's development through both the genes and environments they provide. Thus, greater quantities of affordable, regulated child care may be possible. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interaction between physical environment, social environment, and child characteristics in determining physical activity at child care.

Objective: To investigate the association between the child-care environment and physical activity of 2- and 3-year-olds. Based on an ecological view of environmental influences on health behavior, we hypothesized that the social and physical environment, as well as child characteristics (age and gender), would show independent and interactive effects on children's physical activity intensity. Design: Observations of physical activity intensity were performed among children (N = 175) at 9 Dutch child-care centers. Aspects of the child-care environment were assessed using the validated Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation (EPAO) Instrument. Multilevel linear regression analyses examined the association of environment and child characteristics with children's activity intensity. Moderation was tested by including interaction terms in the analyses, with subsequent post hoc analyses for significant interaction terms. Main Outcome Measure: Observed child physical activity intensity, measured with the Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children—Preschool Version. Results: A large proportion of the observed activities were classified as sedentary, while far fewer observations were classified as moderate or vigorous. Activity opportunities in the physical environment (assessed using EPAO) and prompts by staff and peers were significantly and positively related to physical activity intensity, while group size was negatively related to activity intensity. The influence of the physical environment was moderated by social environment (peer group size), while the social environment in turn interacted with child characteristics (age and gender) in determining activity intensity. Conclusion: Our findings are in line with the ecological perspective regarding environmental influences on behavior, and stress the importance of incorporating the child-care environment in efforts to prevent childhood overweight and obesity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More on nonmaternal child care.

Cautions that C. Etaugh's (see record 1980-11778-001) conclusion that high-quality nonmaternal care does not appear to have adverse effects on a child's development could be interpreted as meaning that nonmaternal care is never harmful to children. More consideration to the developmental status of each family member and to each member's feelings about the childcare arrangement is needed in further research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Social Relations Model analysis of parent and child play.

Introduces the Social Relations Model (Kenny & LaVoie, 1984) as a new approach for understanding reciprocity during parent–child and sibling play. 32 12-month-old infants and their 3- to 4-year-old siblings were videotaped during separate dyadic sessions in a laboratory playroom with their mothers, their fathers, and each other. Each partner's play was coded using a detailed classification system consisting of six discrete play behaviors. Multivariate analyses indicated that mother–child dyads engaged in more instructive play than father–child dyads, although both parents demonstrated age-appropriate adjustments in their play with their two children. Infants and preschoolers engaged in more elaborate types of play with their parents than with their less socially competent siblings. Social Relations Model analyses revealed that the unique adjustments that family members made to one another outweighed family members' general tendencies to behave in particular ways and the partners' tendencies to elicit particular behaviors from family members. Furthermore, these analyses suggested that parents may be primarily responsible for much of the structuring occurring in children's early social interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Costs and benefits of quality child care.

Comments on S. Scarr's (see record 1997-38813-002) review of child day care. The authors note that the article raises issues of whether high-quality child care is associated with child outcomes and whether a decision needs to be made between high-quality and affordable child care. The authors argue that Scarr fails to put issues of affordability & quality in a comprehensive framework. They discuss the importance of quality child care, the cost of quality child care, and the complexity of issues in quality child care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between student attitudes about cooperation and competition and attitudes toward schooling.

Responses to the Minnesota School Affect Assessment made by approximately 2,400 students in grades 2-12 of a midwestern school district were submitted to correlational analyses of relationships between scales measuring attitudes toward cooperation and competition and scales measuring attitudes toward school personnel, motivation to learn, involvement in learning, self-worth as student, other students, and restraints on student behavior. Attitudes toward cooperation and competition were virtually independent across grades. Cooperativeness was consistently related to a broad range of positive attitudes toward schooling experience at all grade levels. Competitiveness changed its pattern of correlates, showing relationships to several positive attitudes only in high school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The child care crisis in America.

Argues that for almost 2 decades the American government has recognized the lack of affordable, good quality child care in the US as a serious and pressing problem. Despite this, the US has made very little progress in terms of instituting major reforms in regard to child care. The authors discuss how and why the child care problem in the US has turned to crisis proportions. In addition, they highlight the developmental concerns that surround the issue of child care, and the different child care options currently available for American families to choose from. Finally, they propose a possible solution to this problem; a solution that could carry the US into the 21st century. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Head Start is not child care.

Comments on S. Scarr's (see record 1997-38813-002) defense of cheap, minimally regulated child care. The author responds to Scarr's comments on Head Start. Scarr dismisses Head Start without acknowledging the comprehensive nature of its intervention in the lives of poor children and their families. Head Start does more than child care aspires to do: Head Start makes sure that poor children get medical and dental care, helps their families gain access to social services, offers volunteer and paid employment to parents, involves parents in governance, serves nutritious meals, provides intellectual stimulation, and above all, helps children develop the social competence necessary to succeed in school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care.

Research on differential susceptibility to rearing suggests that infants with difficult temperaments are disproportionately affected by parenting and child care quality, but a major U.S. child care study raises questions as to whether quality of care influences social adjustment. One thousand three hundred sixty-four American children from reasonably diverse backgrounds were followed from 1 month to 11 years with repeated observational assessments of parenting and child care quality, as well as teacher report and standardized assessments of children’s cognitive-academic and social functioning, to determine whether those with histories of difficult temperament proved more susceptible to early rearing effects at ages 10 and 11. Evidence for such differential susceptibility emerges in the case of both parenting and child care quality and with respect to both cognitive-academic and social functioning. Differential susceptibility to parenting and child care quality extends to late middle childhood. J. Belsky, D. L. Vandell, et al.’s (2007) failure to consider such temperament-moderated rearing effects in their evaluation of long-term child care effects misestimates effects of child care quality on social adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mother and child interpretations of threat in ambiguous situations: Relations with child anxiety and autonomic responding.

This study examined maternal and child interpretive bias to threat (IBT) during dyadic conversation, child physiological reactivity and regulation during dyadic conversation, and maternal report of child anxiety in a community sample of 35 mothers and their 8- to 10-year-old children. Mothers and children discussed one neutral and six ambiguous scenarios, which were subsequently coded for frequency of maternal and child initiation, minimization, and expansion of threat-related themes. Child electrocardiogram data were collected during these conversations and maternal reports of child anxiety and internalizing problems were obtained. Across the sample, children initiated threat-related discussion more often than mothers. Maternal threat expansions were significantly positively correlated with child anxiety and internalizing behaviors. Maternal minimizations of threat were significantly associated with augmented child vagal tone throughout the IBT paradigm. Implications for prevention of child anxiety and directions for extending IBT research within the context of the mother–child dyad are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between preschool barrier behaviors and early school-age measures of coping, imagination, and verbal development.

Assessed the contemporaneous and longitudinal relations of coping with an experimental barrier situation at 21/2 yrs of age by observing barrier performance of 43 male and 31 female preschool children. Analyses indicate that effective barrier behavior was related to other measures of coping, vigorous play behavior, and lack of fear at the preschool period. A follow-up study when Ss were in the early school-age period (71/2 yrs old) revealed that competence in the experimental barrier situation was related to intelligence, coping, and socially effective behaviors for both sexes. Results suggest the feasibility of using responses to experimental barrier situations to assess coping behavior. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences and effective schooling.

Summarizes the knowledge base with relevance for researchers and practitioners in their efforts to create school environments that effectively adapt to individual learning needs. Recent developments are traced in terms of their impact on how individual differences in learning are viewed, types of information that are examined and described, and use of this information for instructional decision making. Implications of these developments are addressed in 2 areas: (1) broadening of the research base on individual differences and processes of learning and instruction in classroom settings and (2) improvement of schooling practice, especially the role of the school psychologist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exceptionally high intelligence and schooling.

Exceptionally intelligent children differ qualitatively from their peers and often are socially isolated and underchallenged in the classroom. Research on educational options for these children shows existing programs to be effective. Little money is spent in the United States on education for gifted children, and distribution of special programs varies widely, with nonurban areas and disadvantaged children being the least likely to receive special services and with the most common option being the weakest one, the pullout program. There is a growing movement to disband existing programs. Instead of calling for more of the existing programs, it is argued that first, standards should be elevated for all children. Those children who still remain underchallenged should then receive advanced classes in their domain of ability. Thus, fewer children would be identified as being in need of special services, and those identified would be the more profoundly gifted children who would receive the strongest kind of intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Compulsory schooling, child study, clinical psychology, and special education: Origins of school psychology.

The historical development of school psychology is discussed in the context of circumstances and individuals significant to its origins. The contributions of L. Witmer's clinical psychology and G. S. Hall's child study demonstrate how early forms of school psychology evolved from their conceptualizations. Even though the specialty did not achieve a stable national identity until the 2nd half of the 20th century, the provision of psychological services in schools is among the earliest fields of applied psychology and has distinct connections to Witmer and Hall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)