Children's Emotional Regulation and Social Competence in Middle Childhood

SUMMARY

Associations among parental behaviors, children's emotional reactivity, and dimensions of children's social competence were examined. Fourth grade children (N = 103) and their parents participated in a laboratory discussion task. Parent-child relationship qualities, parental emotion socialization behaviors, measures of children's emotional regulatory abilities, and social competence (assessed by teachers and peers) were obtained. Results indicated that parents' behaviors in the discussion task were related to both children's emotional and social competence. Both mothers' and fathers' behaviors were linked to children's emotional regulatory abilities and social competence. In addition, children's emotional regulation was related to children's social competence. Only limited evidence of the mediating role of emotion regulation was found. Implications for relative roles of mothers and fathers in the emergence of emotional and social competence were noted.     

Orphanage caregivers' perceptions of children's emotional needs

Problems in orphan care are endemic in sub-Saharan Africa where 80% of all children orphaned by AIDS live. Institutions are often the only level of care available for infant orphans, but such care may increase children's risk for psychological, emotional and developmental problems. This study explores Ghanaian institutional caregivers' views of children's emotional and relational needs with the aim of understanding these caregivers' capacities to provide effective care for orphans. Qualitative data was gathered from 92 staff at eight Ghanaian orphanages. Results indicate that while caregivers describe a basic understanding of children's emotional and interpersonal needs, they detail a lack of training and support necessary to fully attend to these needs. Specifically, training for caregivers regarding children's basic attachment needs and the particular emotional needs of orphaned children is critical. The present study suggests the need for training and interventions to strengthen orphanage caregivers' capacity to provide effective orphan care.     

Broken Interaction Rituals,Struggles for Membership,and Violence among Young Children in Two Danish Schools

Children's conflicts, understood as disagreements involving negative emotional energy, constitute a particularly intense type of social interaction. In this paper, we show that children's conflictual interactions in school differ with regard to interactional dynamics and levels of confrontational tension, which together potentially lead to violence. We discuss how these differences relate to issues of inclusion and exclusion, to levels of interactional resources, and to neighborhood differences. Our conclusions are based on analysis of fieldwork data on children aged five to eight in two Danish schools. The analysis applies Goffman's and Collins's perspectives on interaction rituals and violence and the concept of emotional capital based on Bourdieu's theory of practice.     

Children’s consent to child welfare services: Some explorative remarks

In this article, children consenting to a care order proposal is explored as a form of meaningful participation as seen by care-experienced young people. In contrast to health care and research ethics, almost no research exists on children's consent to child welfare measures. The findings suggest that instead of approaching children as individualistic rights-holders, a more relational understanding about consenting is required, both conceptually and in practice, to acknowledge the social, emotional and power relations in which children's consent (or objection) becomes topical in child welfare. Without that recognition, consenting may be far from meaningful participation.     

CORRELATES OF CHILDREN'S SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT FOLLOWING DIVORCE

This study examines family correlates of children's social adjustment following divorce. Data concerning 411 children were collected from interviews wlth 206 randomly selected custodial parents. A social adjustment scale completed by the custodial parent served as the criterion measure of children's adjustment. The most significant factor related to children's satisfactory social adjustment was a positive relationship with the custodial parent. Other significant correlates included the custodial parent's own ability to maintain emotional and social adjustment, that parent's age and number of previous marriages, the children's current reaction to the divorce, and parental satisfaction with dating and friends.     

The Contribution of Older Siblings' Reactions to Emotions to Preschoolers' Emotional and Social Competence

SUMMARY

According to Tompkins' (1991) theory on the socialization of emotion, young children's emotional and social competence are influenced by others' reactions to the children's emotions. Patterns of parental reactions to emotions have been shown to account for significant variance in preschoolers' emotion and social competence. However, the impact of others significant in the preschooler's life has been largely ignored. To help fill this gap, associations were examined between older siblings' reactions to 41 preschoolers' emotions and the preschoolers' social-emotional competence (i.e., affective balance, emotion knowledge, positive, prosocial, and provocative responding to peers' emotions, sociometric likability, and teacher-rated social competence). Using a multiple regression strategy, the contributions of sibling reactions and moderating demographic variables to preschooler emotional and social competence were evaluated. Certain sibling reactions, especially positive emotional responsiveness, were shown to play important roles. Many predictions were moderated by age of child, sex of one dyad member     

Parental substance misuse and statutory child protection in England: Risk factors and outcomes

Parental substance misuse is a significant child welfare issue and associated with increased risk of child maltreatment. The aim of the present study was to understand what social care outcomes children who live with parental substance misuse have, and to assess factors associated with those social care outcomes over a two-year period. The paper reports on a retrospective longitudinal study of 299 children all living with parental substance misuse and referred to one local authority in England. Data were collected from children's social work case files about procedural social care outcomes and factors which may be associated with those outcomes. Using cluster analysis, a new typology of children's longitudinal trajectories through the children's social care system was developed, consisting of five distinct types. Analysis indicated that some children received too little intervention from children's social care despite ongoing concerns, while other children were potentially unnecessarily caught up in the social care system. Factors associated with children having the poorest outcomes were: caregiver instability resulting from substance misuse, parenting capacity and household instability. The study's findings indicate that some children who live with parental substance misuse are at significant risk of harm, but others are not and may be better supported through non-statutory services such as early help.     

“Don't Cry,You're Not a Baby!”: Emotion,Role and Hierarchy in Korean Language Socialisation Practice

I examine how South Korean children learn culturally specific emotional knowledge, especially affective hierarchy and the association between emotional displays and social roles, through participation in peer talk. An analysis of children's and teachers’ everyday emotional discourses shows that children, rather than passively adopting adult emotional discourses, creatively employ a range of linguistic and communicative features regarding emotions to construct their own culture‐laden emotional world. Findings articulate the role children's peer talk has in cultural reproduction and dynamic aspects of the language socialisation processes.     

Mothers and child care: policies,values and theories

Government expansion of child care services is based on the assumption that both parents are employed (the adult worker model) and make cost‐benefit calculations in choosing child care (the rational economic choice model). This paper addresses this assumption, based on research examining mothers' assessments of appropriate child care. These assessments involve complex moral and emotional decisions around their own and their children's needs, and differ between social groups. On this basis, we conclude that the assumptions underlying current child care expansion policy are inadequate, and that the mere expansion of services is not enough.     

Adolescents’ Daily Experience of Fathers’ Emotional Support and Self‐Evaluation in Korea

Recently, fathers’ role in children's development has been recognized internationally. In Asian countries, similar conversations have emerged but there has been a lack of empirical studies that considered the unique cultural contexts. As a response, based on Bronfenbrenner's process‐person‐context‐time model, the present study examined the daily dynamics and individual differences in the experience of fathers’ emotional support and self‐evaluation in social roles among 283 Korean adolescents in 5th and 8th grade. Through Hierarchical Linear Modeling, within‐person associations between adolescents’ experience of fathers’ emotional support and self‐evaluation in social roles on the same day and the next day were found, with individual differences by grade level and family affluence. Theoretical and practical implications within the relevant cultural context are discussed.     

Social Fathering in Low‐Income,African American Families with Preschool Children

Although research increasingly focuses on nonresident biological fathers, little attention has been given to the role of other men in children's lives. The authors examine the factors associated with social father presence and their influence on preschoolers' development. Findings indicate that the majority of children have a social father and that mother, child, and nonresident biological father characteristics are all related to social father presence. These associations differ depending on whether the social father is the mother's romantic partner or a male relative. The social father's influence on children's development also depends on his relationship to the child. Male relative social fathers are associated with higher levels of children's school readiness, whereas mothers' romantic partner social fathers are associated with lower levels of emotional maturity.     

Experiencing parenthood,care and spaces of hospitality

Drawing on research conducted in Australia and the United Kingdom, this paper explores how parenting and care provision is entangled with, and thus produced through, consumption in hospitality venues. We examine how the socio‐material practices of hospitality provision shape the enactment of parenting, alongside the way child‐parent/consumer‐provider interactions impact upon experiences of hospitality spaces. We argue that venues provide contexts for care provision, acting as spaces of sociality, informing children's socialization and offering temporary relief from the work of parenting. However, the data also highlight various practices of exclusion and multiple forms of emotional and physical labour required from care‐providers. The data illustrate children's ability to exercise power and the ways in which parents’/carers’ experiences of hospitality spaces are shaped by their enactment of discourses of ‘good parenting’. Finally, we consider parents’/carers’ coping behaviours as they manage social and psychological risks associated with consumption in such public spaces of leisure.     

Children's participation in ethnographic research: Issues of power and representation

The recognition of children's social agency and active participation in research has significantly changed children's position within the human and social sciences and led to a weakening of taken‐for‐granted assumptions found in more conventional approaches to child research. In order to hear the voices of children in the representation of their own lives it is important to employ research practices such as reflexivity and dialogue. These enable researchers to enter into children's ‘cultures of communication’. Drawing on detailed examples from an ethnographic study on child health and self‐care, the article examines issues of power, voice and representation central to the discussion of children's participation.     

Children's agency and its contradictions in the context of transnational labour migration from Vietnam

In this article, we contribute to the growing and diverse literature on the lived experiences of children and their agency in the context of migration. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with children whose migrant parents have left them behind, as well as with those who care for them in Vietnam, we demonstrate that the various ways in which they affect migration decision‐making and transnational communication shape the children's imaginations of migration. The context‐specific social construction of childhood, or more specifically adult perceptions of children's agency and needs, in turn structures these processes. We emphasize the need for debates on children's agency to take into account both broader socio‐economic processes at the macro level and the concrete and local scale at which children's lives unfold. By outlining how children's experiences of parental migration are constitutive of their attitudes toward this livelihood strategy, we also argue that the ability of those ‘left‐behind’ to exercise agency is closely intertwined with processes of social becoming and navigation in the transnational social fields constructed for them by adults.     

The longitudinal effects of after-school program experiences,quantity, and regulatable features on children's social–emotional development

Experiences of 298 children with their caregivers in after-school programs (ASPs) were examined as predictors of social–emotional functioning across the first through fifth grade. Moderating effects of previous social–emotional problems, child gender, family income, quantity of care, and program regulatable features were also estimated. On average, ASP experiences negatively predicted externalizing problems and positively predicted social self-control and assertion. Interestingly, positive ASP experiences did not predict decreased externalizing behaviors, but instead children with negative experiences had higher levels of externalizing behavior problems. Changes in ASP experiences positively predicted changes in self-control scores, but only for boys. Finally, staff experience, staff wages, and changes in child-to-caregiver ratios predicted children's ASP experiences and levels of social–emotional development.     

Lessons from introducing a livelihood project for unaccompanied children into an existing child protection programme in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya

Evidence shows that displacement, family separation and economic status are risk factors for child protection concerns and children's mental health, and that violence and economic status are risk factors for children's physical, emotional and social development. Family based care, community social support and economic strengthening have been shown to moderate such risk factors. This article explores the introduction of a livelihood project for unaccompanied children into an existing child protection programme in the Dadaab refugee camp complex in Kenya, with the primary objective of strengthening the household economy of foster families and improving the care of the fostered children. In this article the authors reflect on the programme's work in recognising and building on existing traditional clan-based family tracing and care mechanisms for unaccompanied and separated children, as well as the importance of understanding the particular needs of specific groups of children such as those without appropriate care. They discuss issues of insecurity and lack of funding affecting programme quality and programme monitoring, and discus challenges of project design. Consideration of how such challenges can impact on existing traditional care mechanisms is shared. The authors argue for greater acknowledgement and efforts to build on traditional child protection mechanisms within wider debates on child protection systems; greater understanding and consideration of the needs of unaccompanied children in particular contexts; better monitoring of the outcomes of child protection programmes on the children they serve; and adequate and sustained funding for child protection in emergencies.     

Parenting and emotional well-being of adoptive school-aged children: The mediating role of attachment

This study focuses on the processes of adoptive parenting that affect children's emotional well-being. It aims to analyze the role of children's attachment as a mediator of the relationship between both parenting styles and parenting stress and children's positive and negative affect in adoptive families of school-aged children. The study included 322 Portuguese participants, divided into one group of adoptive parents (n = 135) and one comparison group of non-adoptive parents (n = 187); target-children were aged between 6 and 12 years. Self-report questionnaires were used to analyze the dimensions under study (parenting styles, parenting stress, children's attachment and children's emotional well-being). After conducting a preliminary analysis to identify potential differences between the adoptive and the non-adoptive parents, a mediation model was tested using the path analysis procedure. A baseline model was established, followed by a multi-group analysis in order to explore the model's invariance across the groups. Children's attachment mediated the relationship between parenting (styles and stress) and children's positive and negative affect. The multi-group analysis revealed that, for the adoptive group, both secure and anxious/ambivalent attachment mediated the association between parenting stress and negative affect; for the non-adoptive group, secure attachment was found to mediate the link between emotional warmth and positive affect. For both groups, the relationship between parenting stress and positive affect was mediated by secure attachment. Results pointed to the relevance of children's attachment in the association of parenting styles and parenting stress with children's emotional well-being. Moreover, differences concerning the mediation model emerged across the two groups, revealing that children's negative outcomes were better explained in the adoptive group. The results reinforce the importance of supporting adoptive parents after the adoption process.     

African American caregivers' resources for support: Implications for children's perceived support from their caregiver

School-aged children often turn to their primary caregiver, such as a mother, father, or other close relative, for support in dealing with difficult situations. This cross-sectional, school-based study examined whether urban, lower-income African American caregivers' stressful life events, affective symptoms, and perceived support from their social network were associated with their children's perceptions of support from and conflict with the caregiver. Forty-six African American children aged 8–12 years and a primary caregiver were recruited from a partnering Midwestern United States elementary school and separately interviewed. Results showed that caregivers' report of greater support from their social network across a variety of domains was associated with children's report of greater instrumental support from their caregiver. Caregivers' report of greater attachment to members of their social network was associated with children's report of greater emotional support from their caregiver. Implications of findings for mental health promotion among children and families are discussed.     

Re‐framing the Analysis: A 3‐dimensional Perspective of Prisoners’ Children's Well‐being

This article highlights three dimensions to understanding children's well‐being during and after parental imprisonment which have not been fully explored in current research. A consideration of ‘time’ reveals the importance of children's past experiences and their anticipated futures. A focus on ‘space’ highlights the impact of new or altered environmental dynamics. A study of ‘agency’ illuminates how children cope within structural, material and social confines which intensify vulnerability and dependency. This integrated perspective reveals important differences in individual children's experiences and commonalities in broader systemic and social constraints on prisoners’ children. The paper analyses data from a prospective longitudinal study of 35 prisoners’ children during and after their (step) father's imprisonment to illustrate the arguments.