Media use and screen time show both positive and negative effects on child development. Parents' behaviors, perceptions, and regulation of parent and child screen-based device (SBD) use may be critical understudied factors in explaining these mixed effects. We developed the Parent Screen-Based Device Use Survey (PSUS) to assess parental use of…

Although the trait of Agreeableness is broadly considered a key facet of adjustment, mental health, and socioemotional competence, surprisingly little is known about its developmental origins. Laursen and Richmond (2014) proposed that children's early difficulty poses a challenge for their future social relationships, ultimately leading to low…

The following article surveys changes to school punishment in the United States over the past century -- particularly, the rise of exclusionary methods and the school-to-prison pipeline -- to argue that prevailing disciplinary techniques are out of step with the developmental ethos of education and the principles of democratic oversight. To remedy…

The only consistency with children, with and without disabilities, is that they are inconsistent. Much of a child's behavior is adult controlled by their reaction, methods used, and consistency in support and discipline. When adults change the way they respond to the child's behaviors, the child gradually will learn to modify their behavior.…

Preschool special education students' lack of personal-social skills is affecting their kindergarten readiness and placing them at risk for exposure to school discipline in a large school district in the Southeastern United States. The purpose of this quantitative investigation was to examine the relationship between the quality of school…

Addressing the surge in mental health and social and emotional needs of students and staff will be critical in the upcoming years. The increased understanding of the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma, and their negative effects on the social, emotional, and academic success of students, has propelled a growing number of…

In the present investigation we focused on 2 broad sets of questions: Do parental overreactivity, laxness, and corporal punishment show evidence of normative change in early to middle childhood? Are persistently elevated child conduct problems (CPs) associated with deviations from normative changes in, as well as high initial levels of, discipline…

Behavioural problems are commonly experienced in schools. This contributes to poor academic results and general disciplinary problems, among other things. It is argued that punitive disciplinary methods are aggravating unacceptable behaviours. This paper presents information about the use of punishment, how children react to these measures, and…

This study used cross-lagged modeling to examine reciprocal relations between maternal and paternal harsh verbal discipline and adolescents' conduct problems and depressive symptoms. Data were from a sample of 976 two-parent families and their children (51% males; 54% European American, 40% African American). Mothers' and fathers'…

The present study examined the early parenting and temperament determinants of children's antisocial and positive behaviors in a low-income, diverse ethno-racial sample. Participants were from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, which included 960 European American (initial M age = 15.00 months; 51.2% female) and 880 African…

Parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face specific challenges in parenting, but concrete parenting behavior has never been properly investigated in these families. This exploratory questionnaire study compared parenting behaviors among mothers of children and adolescents with ASD (n = 552) and without ASD (n = 437) and examined…

The "My Brother's Keeper" Initiative (Obama, 2014) has helped to attract public attention to the vulnerabilities faced by many boys of color (BOC). In this article, I review what is known about the developmental status of BOC, identify key family practices that are critical to their development, and consider the implications of both for…

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,870) and cross-lagged path analysis, the authors examined whether spanking at ages 1 and 3 is adversely associated with cognitive skills and behavior problems at ages 3 and 5. The authors found spanking at age 1 was associated with a higher level of spanking and externalizing…

This study examined whether the longitudinal links between mothers' use of spanking and children's externalizing behaviors are moderated by family race/ethnicity, as would be predicted by cultural normativeness theory, once mean differences in frequency of use are controlled. A nationally representative sample of White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian…

National education statistics and data indicators show that a significant portion of both male and female learners struggle through their educational experience with little to no success. The male learner is less successful in school than the female learner and drops out of high school more often. It is even more alarming when these numbers are…