The present study examined the longitudinal relations between psychopathology and social competence in a sample of 115 Chinese children during the transition to preschool initiated in their third year of life. Social competence was assessed by maternal reports at three months after preschool entry (T1) and at the end of the first (T2) and second…

Lower levels of parent-child affective flexibility indicate risk for children's problem outcomes. This short-term longitudinal study examined whether maternal depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of dyadic affective flexibility and positive affective content in mother-child problem-solving interactions at age 3.5?years…

This study examined the prevalence and determinants of spanking of children at 3?years of age and the associations between spanking and externalizing behaviour and receptive verbal ability at age 5?years. Overall, we find maternal spanking rates of 55.2% and paternal rates of 43.2% at age 3?years. Mothers facing greater stress and those who…

The current study examined concurrent and longitudinal relations between maternal negative affective behaviour and child negative emotional expression in preschool age children with (n=96) or without (n=126) an early developmental risk, as well as the predictions of later behaviour problems. Maternal negative affective behaviour, child…

The Behaviour Style Observation System for Young Children (BSOS) was used to predict preschool-aged children's externalizing and internalizing behaviour problems in middle childhood, 3-5 years after the initial assessment. This observational measurement tool was designed to sample and assess young children's disruptive, non-compliant, and…

The present study included observational and self-report measures to examine associations among parental stress, parental behaviour, child behaviour, and children's theory of mind and emotion understanding. Eighty-three parents and their 3- to 5-year-old children participated. Parents completed measures of parental stress, parenting (laxness,…

Behavioural sleep problems (childhood insomnias) can cause distress for both parents and children. This paper reports a model describing predictors of high sleep problem scores in a representative population-based random sample survey of non-Aboriginal singleton children born in 1995 and 1996 (1085 girls and 1129 boys) in Western Australia.…

Despite increasing interest in the effects of parenting stress on children and families, many questions remain regarding the nature of parenting stress and the mechanism through which stress exerts its influence across time. In this study, cumulative parenting stress was assessed across the preschool period in a sample of 125 typically developing…