Search

This article examines how childhood innocence is taken up in (92) memories of undergraduate students across four sites in the US and Canada. Drawing from Foucault's theory of discourse, we examine how three themes—innocence as not knowing, innocence as being provided for, and loss of innocence as exposure to adversity—construct childhood as the absence of conflict, which perpetuates the myth of an innocence/experience binary and encourages a deficit perspective of childhood. These findings contribute to teacher education and childhood studies by highlighting the importance of interrogating adult memories in order to disrupt normative assumptions about children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increasing scholarly attention to the study of maternal sensitivity as a multidimensional construct. This report investigated the predictive value of three dimensions of sensitivity during mother–infant interactions in an effort to gain greater understanding of how specific facets of sensitivity relate to child socioemotional outcomes. Maternal cooperation/attunement (accurate interpretation of infant cues and capacity to adjust the interaction correspondingly), positivity (positive attitude toward the infant), and accessibility/availability (consistent attentiveness) were assessed observationally in 195 mothers of 1‐year‐old infants. Child socioemotional functioning was assessed using behavioral tasks and maternal and teacher reports when children were 4 years of age. The results revealed that maternal accessibility/availability was predictive of less externalizing behavior, more prosocial behavior (mother‐ and teacher‐reported), and better theory of mind, while maternal positivity predicted effortful control. These results highlight the advantages of a multidimensional assessment in understanding how sensitivity predicts different developmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's emotion understanding has emerged as one of the best predictors of their psychological well-being, pro-social competences and school achievement. The main goal of this study was to evaluate for the first time the impact of an easy-to-use and not time-consuming classroom dialogue-based intervention (a) on preschool children's understanding of both simple and complex components of emotions and (b) on the range of individual differences in children's understanding of emotions. Participants were 112 typical 5-year-old children attending 10 different preschools in Canada and France. They were divided into an intervention group (N = 55, 7 classrooms) and a control group (N = 57, 7 classrooms). The intervention, The Tales of Audrey-Anne, lasted over 8–9 months (15 h in total) and was conducted in the classroom by the children's habitual teachers without previous training in using the intervention. Children were assessed before and after the intervention for their emotion understanding with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC). Four results were found. First, the intervention had a positive impact on children's both overall and specific levels of emotion understanding. Second, it did not change the hierarchical order of the specific levels (i.e. external, mental and reflective). Third, it did not have an impact on the range of individual differences (considerable both before and after the intervention). Fourth, it had a positive impact on the longitudinal stability of these differences (much smaller for the children in the experimental group after the intervention). These findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical and applied implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional congruence with children is a psychologically meaningful risk factor for sexual offending against children. The present study examines the correlates of emotional congruence with children in a sample of 424 adult male sexual offenders who started a period of community supervision in Canada, Alaska, and Iowa between 2001 and 2005. Consistent with previous work, we found sexual offenders against children high in emotional congruence with children were more likely to be sexually deviant, have poor sexual self-regulation, experience social loneliness, and have more distorted cognitions about sex with children. Overall, our findings are most consistent with a sexual deviancy model, with some support for a blockage model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students presenting oppositional behaviors often display lower behavioral and emotional engagement in class as compared to their peers. Moreover, children in general are known to be deeply affected by their relationships with teachers while in school. It is therefore possible that such relationships could also influence the engagement of students presenting higher levels of oppositional behavior. As a way of verifying this hypothesis, the present study investigated the contribution of students' levels of oppositional behavior to their behavioral and emotional engagement in literacy. Furthermore, it examined whether these relationships were different for boys and girls, or changed as a function of two components of student-teacher relationships: closeness and conflict. Three hundred and eighty five third and fourth grade students and their teachers participated in the study. Two series of linear regressions were conducted. Findings indicate that students who presented higher levels of oppositional behavior showed lower behavioral engagement than their peers. Moreover, students who had close relationships with their teachers reported higher behavioral engagement. Although closeness in student-teacher relationships protected students from behavioral disengagement, students with higher oppositional behaviors were less protected than students who presented lower levels of oppositional difficulty. Having a warm relationship with a teacher was also more beneficial for the behavioral engagement of girls, whereas a high level of conflict between student and teacher was more harmful for the emotional engagement of boys. This was deemed to be true whether the boys or girls presented high levels of oppositional behavior or not. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of the student-teacher relationship in fostering all students' engagement in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Youth sport has the potential to be one of the healthiest and most beneficial activities in which children can partake. Participation in a combination of adult-led and peer-led sport structures appears to lead to favorable outcomes such as enhanced physical fitness, as well as social and emotional development. The purpose of the present study was to examine the subjective and objective experiences of 27 recreational male soccer players aged 10 to 12 years old (M = 10.11 years, SD = 0.32) across adult-led and peer-led sport structures.Method: Direct video observation and experience-rating scales were utilized in an effort to shed light on the impact of adult-led and peer-led sport structures on the same athletes.Results: In the adult-led structures, youth experienced high levels of effort and concentration while spending more time physically or mentally engaged. Meanwhile, youth experienced high rates of prosocial behaviors, sport-related communication, and general communication during the peer-led structures.Conclusions: The results of the present study indicate that rather than one approach being superior to the other, both adult- and peer-led sport structures have the potential to yield unique benefits toward children's positive experiences in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to explore and identify key themes related to a child's experience of anger. The existing literature on children's emotional experiences stems from adult perceptions and interpretations; this study was envisioned to investigate the experience of anger among children using their own words. Furthermore, this study was designed to illustrate a contextual perspective of children's emotional knowledge, so that teachers, social workers, counsellors and other child mental health professionals may be able to relate and interpret children's emotional experiences. Participants were male and female students, aged 8-9 years and in a regular grade three classroom within a community school. Through the use of semi-structured interview focus groups conducted over a span of 10 weeks, participants were invited to disclose their understandings of anger and how they experienced it. Results were analyzed via a content analysis that resulted in five themes. These themes consisted of understanding anger, origins of anger, consequences of anger, regulation and resolution of anger, and finally relations with others. Results and implications of the findings were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined gender differences in mothers' and fathers' internal state language (ISL), children's use of ISL, and whether ISL was related to parents' ratings of the children's social skills. Fifty-seven (28 boys, 29 girls) toddler/preschool children ( M age = 32.5 months, SD = 5.38 months) were observed separately with their mothers and fathers in their homes while they discussed pictures of children's facial expressions of emotions. Parents completed a questionnaire concerning their child's social-emotional behaviours (i.e. BASC-2). Parents used more ISL with sons compared with daughters, and sons used more ISL with mothers than with fathers. No overall differences were found between mothers' and fathers' ISL. Children's social skills as rated by mothers were predicted by mothers' ISL comments, whereas children's social skills as rated by fathers were predicted by children's age and fathers' ISL clarifications. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internal state language is a unique indicator of children's social understanding. In the current study, the role of context and type of internal state language was investigated. Mother-child internal state discourse in 32 middle-class Canadian families (child M age = 46.4 months) was examined across four contexts: (1) a reflective picture task, and (2) home interactions characterized by (a) neutral, (b) positive, and (c) negative exchanges. Type of mother and child internal state discourse (cognitions, goals, preferences, emotions) varied across and within the different contexts. The strength of the associations between different types of maternal and child talk also varied across and within contexts, which may illuminate the degree of responsiveness in mother-child discourse. Implications for developing greater family sensitivity to internal states, as well as links with current theory and research, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I describe my experiences of being a “child” in different ways in two Canadian Inuit camps. I analyze how I came to have those experiences and how they helped me to understand Inuit children. [empathy, emotions, Inuit, children] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to explore kindergarten teachers' attitudes and beliefs toward hypothetical children who frequently displayed certain types of behaviors with peers in the classroom. Participants were 202 kindergarten teachers from 4 provinces in Canada. Teachers responded to hypothetical vignettes describing children exhibiting shy, unsociable, aggressive, and prosocial behaviors. Beliefs assessed included teachers' tolerances of the behaviors, their behavioral attributions, the estimated academic and social costs to the child as a result of these behaviors, and teachers' responses to each hypothetical child. Teachers reported unique patterns of beliefs and responses toward each of the different types of children described. Not surprisingly, results indicated that teachers had the harshest beliefs toward the aggressive children. However, teachers also clearly distinguished between hypothetical children who were shy versus unsociable, whereas previous research has confounded these behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of the links between teacher beliefs/responses and child socioemotional adjustment at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a cross-cultural study of the emotion of fear. Caregivers from on independent preschool, a preschool attached to a public school, an extended hours care facility for children from birth to school age, and an indigenous community preschool were invited to participate. In total, 20 caregivers in Canada and 21 in Australia participated. They were asked to name fears that preschool-aged children experience, to describe how children show fear, and to further describe how they respond to children's fears. Findings suggest that caregivers can miss or misinterpret fear and fear displays and that they could, in many cases, respond to fear more effectively. By expanding their understanding of what young children fear, the variety of ways that children express fear, and how to help children to understand fear, early childhood educators in both countries can more effectively respond to fear and other emotions in young children. It is hoped that insights provided through this cross-cultural study will assist early childhood educators to achieve this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a series of focus groups were conducted to gain an understanding of the nature of stress among Canadian Aboriginal women and men living with diabetes. Specifically, attention was given to the meanings Aboriginal peoples with diabetes attach to their lived experiences of stress, and the major sources or causes of stress in their lives. The key common themes identified are concerned not only with health-related issues (i.e. physical stress of managing diabetes, psychological stress of managing diabetes, fears about the future, suffering the complications of diabetes, and financial aspects of living with diabetes), but also with marginal economic conditions (e.g. poverty, unemployment); trauma and violence (e.g. abuse, murder, suicide, missing children, bereavement); and cultural, historical, and political aspects linked to the identity of being Aboriginal (e.g. 'deep-rooted racism', identity problems). These themes are, in fact, acknowledged not as mutually exclusive, but as intertwined. Furthermore, the findings suggest that it is important to give attention to diversity in the Aboriginal population. Specifically, Métis-specific stressors, as well as female-specific stressors, were identified. An understanding of stress experienced by Aboriginal women and men with diabetes has important implications for policy and programme planning to help eliminate or reduce at-risk stress factors, prevent stress-related illnesses, and enhance their health and life quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on several studies on child health care. A University of British Columbia study said that women in the postpartum period should be screened for anger, depression, and anxiety. A study in "Child Development" journal said that close ties between siblings may give protection from the psychological harm caused by hostility between parents. Parents who are too controlling could harm their children's emotional well-being according to a study in "Developmental Psychology" journal.