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Aim: This participative, creative research aimed to explore the meaning of 'safe space' at school, defined as areas which children could access when emotionally dysregulated. This study aimed to answer the research question -- how do children and teachers understand the meaning of safe space at school? Rationale: Safe space is an overused and conceptually confused term, which has been described as the second-most popular strategy for supporting children's anxiety in UK schools. However, the scarce research literature documents adult views of the benefits of safe space, with little reference to children's perceptions. Method: A Mosaic-based approach, which offers child-centred, multi-modal methods for exploring views, was used to enable seven children and their three teachers to construct their understanding of safe space in school. Children designated as users of safe space led the researcher on a school tour and took photos of a puppet in their chosen safe spaces. Teachers participated in a semi-structured interview. Visual data was categorised using content analysis and combined with inductive, reflexive thematic analysis of verbal data to identify themes. Findings: Children's multiple, dynamic understandings of safe space generated themes of liberated places, safe bases and belonging, contrasting with teachers' differing understanding of a static, boundaried, restricted space. The value of psychological safety in school alongside giving children agency to self-regulate according to context and need is emphasised when considering safe space. Implications: Discussing the 'dilemmas of difference' regarding teachers' operationalising of a safe space in school leads to consideration of the potential implications for educational policy and practice. The value of deconstructing dominant adult discourses through visibly listening to children using a humanistic, empowering psychological framework is highlighted. Limitations: Children's words, photographs and actions were filtered and interpreted by the researcher which could be conceived as constraining child voice and furthering adult-child power imbalances. The full Mosaic approach where a platform for communication between adults and children is facilitated did not take place due to school closures because of the pandemic. Conclusions: This research extends, and to a degree challenges previous UK literature which suggests that safe space is a beneficial strategy for managing anxiety, as child participants had a more dynamic and flexible understanding of safe space than their teachers. Concerns were raised about the understanding and awareness teachers have regarding wellbeing interventions and how these have the potential to become stigmatising within a behaviourist-dominated school perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A commentary on this issue's opinion paper, by a leading UK legal expert, takes a look into UK legal aspects of dental treatment for children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prevalence of dental anxiety among a representative sample of children in the UK was determined in the Children's Dental Health survey of 2003. Aims: This paper is concerned with the extent to which children in the United Kingdom are judged by a parent or carer to be behaviourally affected by dental anxiety and the factors associated with this. Method: The information was gathered by self-completion questionnaire distributed to the parents of half of the sample of children who were also clinically examined in the dental survey. Results: Dental anxiety that was sufficient to disrupt dental attendance was reported for around 3-4% of the four age groups surveyed (5, 8, 12 and 15 years of age). Children's dental anxiety was associated with parental dental anxiety; a greater experience of invasive dental treatment and general anaesthetic; receipt of free school meals and social class. Conclusions: Whilst these findings do not necessarily indicate causal relationships, they do confirm a number of co-factors associated with dental anxiety perhaps most importantly that of anxiety with the experience of general anaesthetic for tooth extractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Dental anxiety is common among children. Although there is a wealth of research investigating childhood dental anxiety, little consideration has been given to the child's perspective. Aim This qualitative study sought to explore with children their own experiences of dental anxiety using a cognitive behavioural therapy assessment model. Design Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with dentally anxious children aged 11-16 years. The Five Areas model was used to inform the topic guide and analysis. Data were analysed using a framework approach. Results In total, 13 children were interviewed. Participants described their experiences of dental anxiety across multiple dimensions (situational factors and altered thoughts, feelings, physical symptoms, and behaviours). Participants placed considerable value on communication by dental professionals, with poor communication having a negative influence on dental anxiety and the dentist-patient relationship. Conclusions This study confirms the Five Areas model as an applicable theoretical model for the assessment of childhood dental anxiety. Children provided insights about their own dental anxiety experiences that have not previously been described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although interpretation bias has been associated with the development and/or maintenance of childhood anxiety, its origins remain unclear. The present study is the first to examine intergenerational transmission of this bias from parents to their preschool-aged children via the verbal information pathway. A community sample of fifty parent-child pairs was recruited. Parents completed measures of their own trait anxiety and interpretation bias, their child's anxiety symptoms, and a written story-stem measure, to capture the way parents tell their children stories. Interpretation bias was assessed in preschool-aged children (aged between 2 years 7 months and 5 years 8 months) using an extended story-stem paradigm. Young children's interpretation bias was not significantly associated with their own anxiety symptoms. Neither was there evidence for a significant association between parent and child interpretation bias. However, parents who reported they would tell their child one or more threatening story endings in the written story-stem task had significantly higher anxiety than those who did not include any threatening story endings. In turn, children whose parents did not include any threatening endings in their written stories had significantly lower threat interpretations on the child story-stem paradigm, compared to those with parents who included at least one threatening story ending. The results suggest that parental verbal information could play a role in the development of interpretation bias in young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the use of the computer software Smiley Faces Program (SFP) to measure the dental anxiety of children in Great Britain. Significance of SFP for dentists; Reliability of the anxiety scale; Suggestion that the use of computer graphics helped the children engage with the dental anxiety scale.