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The current study aims to clarify the temporal associations between maternal sensitivity and children's sleep problems across early childhood. This study comprised 942 Dutch mother-child dyads from the Generation R Study, a population-based prospective cohort study. Throughout early childhood, maternal sensitivity was observed in mother-child interactions and coded using Ainsworth's 9-point rating scales (1.5 years) and the revised Erickson 7-point rating scales (3 and 4 years). Caregivers reported children's sleep problems on the Sleep Problems Scale of the Child Behaviour Checklist 1½-5 at child ages 1.5, 3, and 6 years. Cross-lagged panel modelling revealed that higher levels of maternal sensitivity (3 years) were associated with fewer sleep problems (6 years); all other temporal associations between maternal sensitivity and children's sleep problems were nonsignificant. In conclusion, some indication of an association of parenting with children's sleep across early childhood was found, but there was no evidence for bidirectional associations over time.

Background: The transition from primary to secondary education can be difficult for children. This paper reports on an intervention in the Netherlands known as the Talent Classrooms (TC), which aimed to support students' primary-secondary school transition. The goal of TC was to increase the match between the personal environment of the student and the school environment to facilitate a successful transition, and to help students achieve their potential at secondary school. Purpose: With the needs described in the review by Symonds and Galton (2014) taken as a starting point for this investigation, we sought to explore the extent to which TC supported six specific needs during students' primary-secondary transition period, according to participants' longer term reflections about their earlier TC experiences. Methods: In this qualitative study, in-depth interviews were conducted with ten former TC students, four to five years after they had participated in the intervention. Data were analysed qualitatively. Findings: The analysis suggested that, according to the participants, TC had fostered most needs and this helped to support their transition experience. In particular, participants reported that, via their involvement in TC, they had become more familiar with the physical environment and routine of secondary school, were able to form lasting friendships and enjoyed a challenging curriculum and extracurricular activities. However, findings also indicated that the intervention did not fully succeed in supporting some needs, mainly in the areas of autonomy, competency, and identity development, as it did not seem to have prepared all participants sufficiently for the requirement for independent working they subsequently encountered in secondary school. Conclusions: This study highlights how emphasis on the development of autonomy-related skills might be beneficial for interventions designed to assist students with the transition to secondary education. Moreover, it draws attention to the importance of tailoring support to individual students' specific, varied and evolving needs during this stage of development.

ABSTRACT Child safety is an important outcome of child protection services (CPSs); however, this is often assessed in terms of official registries (e.g., rereports). Little empirical evidence is available about how the frequency of child maltreatment changes during CPS intervention by using self‐report measures. The present study evaluates the frequency of child maltreatment experienced by children receiving mandatory child protection support compared to carefully matched children receiving voluntary child protection support. The current study is part of an ongoing Dutch longitudinal study on family violence consisting of several cohorts with similar designs. Both parents and children reported on the frequency of child maltreatment using validated questionnaires at two timepoints, 12 months apart. To facilitate careful comparison, both groups were matched using propensity scores based on background variables, resulting in two groups of N = 178 children. GLMM analyses showed a significant decrease in the mean number of child maltreatment incidents over time in the total group. However, this decrease did not differ for children receiving mandatory and voluntary child protection support. The findings indicate that, despite possible motivational challenges in the mandatory group, mandatory child protection support elicits comparable results as voluntary support. Implications for further research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. While there is ample theoretical and empirical interest in overparenting, little is known about how overparenting of adolescents operates in everyday family life. This study describes the development and validation of a novel instrument to assess overparenting with Experience Sampling Methods – The Momentary Overparenting (MOP) scale. Methods. Following 143 (Belgian and Dutch) adolescents for 7 subsequent days, we measured overparenting (i.e., worry, interference, and unnecessary help), autonomy support and psychological control 5 to 6 times per day. Using multilevel structural equation modeling on 1865 parent-adolescent interactions, we investigated the scale's psychometric properties: within-family and between-family reliability, convergent and divergent validity. Results. Overparenting was characterized by both stable differences between families (46%), as well as dynamic fluctuations within families over time (54% of the variance). The MOP could reliably assess such real-time dynamics in overparenting. Momentary assessments correlated meaningfully with established instruments for overparenting at the between-family level. Within families, adolescents experienced interactions with more overparenting as more psychologically controlling and less autonomy supportive. Between families, overparenting correlated negatively with mothers' autonomy support and positively with mothers' psychological control. Conclusion. Worry, interference, and unnecessary help may be important expressions of overparenting in everyday family life – which can now be reliably measured from moment-to-moment as a distinct parenting construct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Samenvatting: Opvoeden is een mooie, maar complexe taak, en ouders twijfelen vaak of ze het wel goed doen. Veel ouders ervaren tegenwoordig stress en vermoeidheid, en sommigen ontwikkelen zelfs een burn-out door opvoeden. Verschillende maatschappelijke trends liggen ten grondslag aan deze ontwikkelingen, waaronder onzekerheid over wat als normaal wordt beschouwd in de ontwikkeling van kinderen, de druk om perfect op te voeden, en een afname van informele steunnetwerken. Deze drie ontwikkelingen staan in deze bijdrage centraal. Ten eerste hebben ouders tegenwoordig toegang tot een overvloed aan informatie, maar dit leidt paradoxaal genoeg vaker tot verwarring dan tot helderheid. Ouders zijn vaak onzeker over of hun kind zich normaal ontwikkelt. Ten tweede zorgt de maatschappelijke druk om perfect te zijn als ouder voor onrealistische verwachtingen en stress. Deze nadruk op perfectie zorgt ervoor dat ouders minder zelfvertrouwen hebben en zich onbekwaam voelen in de opvoeding. Ten derde voelen ouders zich vaak geïsoleerd en vinden ze het moeilijk om hulp te vragen aan vrienden, familie of buren. In een individualistische samenleving zorgt het idee van zelfredzaamheid ervoor dat ouders terughoudend zijn om hulp te vragen. Er is een verschuiving nodig naar "goed genoeg ouderschap". Het accepteren van de verschillen in ontwikkeling, het erkennen dat ouderschap niet perfect hoeft te zijn, en het lef hebben om hulp te vragen in het netwerk, zijn belangrijke stappen om het welzijn van ouders te verbeteren. Door het idee van goed genoeg ouderschap te omarmen, kunnen ouders zich bevrijden van onrealistische verwachtingen, en dat is uiteindelijk beter voor zowel ouders als kinderen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Childhood anxiety disorders (CAD) are a common childhood mental disorder and understanding early developmental pathways is key to prevention and early intervention. What is not understood is whether early life stress predictors of CAD might be both mediated by infant cortisol reactivity and moderated by infant attachment status. To address this question, this exploratory study draws on 190 women recruited in early pregnancy and followed together with their children until 4 years of age. Early life stress is operationalized as maternal depression measured using the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM, Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Parenting Stress Index, and antenatal maternal hair cortisol concentrations. Infant cortisol reactivity was measured at 12 months together with the Strange Situation Procedure and CAD assessed at 4 years of age using the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment. There was no direct association between attachment classification and CAD. Furthermore, infant cortisol reactivity neither mediated nor attachment moderated the association of early life stress predictors and CAD. However, only for infants with organized attachment classifications, higher maternal antenatal depression, and hair cortisol were associated with a higher risk of CAD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study aims to clarify the temporal associations between maternal sensitivity and children's sleep problems across early childhood. This study comprised 942 Dutch mother–child dyads from the Generation R Study, a population-based prospective cohort study. Throughout early childhood, maternal sensitivity was observed in mother–child interactions and coded using Ainsworth's 9-point rating scales (1.5 years) and the revised Erickson 7-point rating scales (3 and 4 years). Caregivers reported children's sleep problems on the Sleep Problems Scale of the Child Behaviour Checklist 1½−5 at child ages 1.5, 3, and 6 years. Cross-lagged panel modelling revealed that higher levels of maternal sensitivity (3 years) were associated with fewer sleep problems (6 years); all other temporal associations between maternal sensitivity and children's sleep problems were nonsignificant. In conclusion, some indication of an association of parenting with children's sleep across early childhood was found, but there was no evidence for bidirectional associations over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and methods: In two birth cohort studies with genetic, sensitive parenting, and attachment data of more than 1,000 infants in total, we tested main and interaction effects of candidate genes involved in the dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin systems ("DRD4", "DRD2", "COMT", "5-HTT", "OXTR") on attachment security and disorganization. Parenting was assessed using observational rating scales for parental sensitivity (Ainsworth, Bell, & Stayton, 1974), and infant attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation Procedure. Results: We found no consistent additive genetic associations for attachment security and attachment disorganization. However, specific tests revealed evidence for a codominant risk model for "COMT" Val158Met, consistent across both samples. Children with the Val/Met genotype showed higher disorganization scores (combined effect size d = 0.22, CI = 0.10-0.34, p less than 0.001). Gene-by-environment interaction effects were not replicable across the two samples. Conclusions: This unexpected finding might be explained by a broader range of plasticity in heterozygotes, which may increase susceptibility to environmental influences or to dysregulation of emotional arousal. This study is unique in combining the two largest attachment cohorts with molecular genetic and observed rearing environment data to date.

In this meta-analysis of 75 studies on more than 3,888 children in 19 different countries, the intellectual development of children living in children's homes (orphanages) was compared with that of children living with their (foster) families. Children growing up in children's homes showed lower IQ's than did children growing up in a family (trimmed d = 0.74). The age at placement in the children's home, the age of the child at the time of assessment, and the developmental level of the country of residence were associated with the size of the delays. Children growing up in children's homes show a substantial lower level of IQ (average IQ of 84) than their peers reared in (foster) families (average IQ of 104), and the difference amounted to 20 IQ points. More research is needed to detect the causes of the large IQ delays and to test ways of improving the intellectual development of millions of children in orphanages around the world. (Contains 3 tables.)

The current study investigates the association between physical child maltreatment and juvenile delinquent behavior in the context of the Situational Action Theory (SAT) (Wikström, 2006, 2017, 2020). Self-control, morality and exposure to criminogenic settings are proposed as possible mechanisms explaining the association between physical child maltreatment and adolescent offending. The hypotheses are tested in a subsample of the third wave of the International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD3), a large international non-clinical study on delinquency and victimization among adolescents. The final sample consists of N = 24,956 adolescents aged 12–16 years from nine West European countries. While controlling for dependence due to nested data and several covariates, the models are tested for overall offending and separately for violent and property offending. Results confirm that physical child maltreatment is associated with the main concepts of SAT (lower self-control; lower morality; and more exposure to criminogenic environments), which in turn are associated with juvenile delinquency. The models show partial mediation for overall offending, property offending and violent offending. The findings provide support for the theoretical prowess of SAT and its main concepts: self-control, morality and exposure to criminogenic settings as mediators in the well-established physical child maltreatment/delinquency link. These findings are consistent with the 'cycle of violence' perspective and contribute to the theoretical clarification of the mechanisms involved in the child maltreatment/delinquency link. The findings fail to confirm a 'crime-specific propensity'. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]