Families create contexts for learning to enhance and support the interests of their children, while simultaneously teaching language, morals, and culture. This research examines intergenerational family teams engaged in a long-term conservation project in their community. Participants were interviewed during and after project completion with the…

Emotion talk plays an important role in the social and emotional development of preschoolers, but not much work has shown how teachers talk about emotions in the classroom. We recorded preschool teachers' (N = 13) emotion talk in naturalistic observations. Teachers expressed 633 emotion-related utterances, about 3 per hour (range fewer than 1 to…

Guided by Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, this article examined whether characters in emotion picture-books express and talk about emotions in ways that are consistent with theory and research on children's emotions. In general, we found that picture-books recommended by experts in social-emotional development contain content that is…

This study explored the development of theory of mind (ToM) in 80 Swedish-speaking 3- to 5-year-olds, a previously unstudied language and culture. The ToM scale was translated and tested in a Swedish context. The results show that the ToM abilities improve significantly with age. In addition, a gender difference was observed for the whole sample,…

This paper presents the findings of an interview study (phase one of a three-phase doctoral research project) that attempted to establish practitioners' and parents' views of why parent-child group music making activities are offered in interdisciplinary Children's Centres in England for the 0-3 years age range. These settings are community hubs…

My paper situates literacy in the pre-symbolic implications of the maternal relation. Turning to child psychoanalysis, particularly Melanie Klein's theories of infancy and symbolization, my paper discusses the role the child's inner life plays in her engagements with literacy. Citing cases of second language learning, I pose literacy as…

Pediatricians have been challenged to rethink the schedule, content, and structure of well-child care. There is growing recognition of the need to include a focus on promoting healthy social and emotional development in the context of the parent-child relationship to minimize exposure to toxic stress and reduce the later burden of adult disease.…

This research brief explores how emotions and relationships drive learning and are a fundamental part of how our brains develop. The authors explain how emotionally safe and cognitively stimulating environments contribute to brain development; how brain development that supports learning depends on social experiences; and how sensitive periods in…

This article draws on a study which investigated the interpretation and use of Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) in primary schools in the UK (the authors gratefully acknowledge Studentship funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for this study). The paper focuses on school staff members' perceptions about the…

This study aimed to identify the age of emergence and subsequent order of preverbal social behaviors, which have not yet been fully clarified. This was accomplished using 16 items of social behaviors extracted from the Modified Checklist for Toddlers with Autism (M-CHAT). The Japanese version of the M-CHAT was completed voluntarily by the parents…

It has been estimated that over 20 percent of children live in families where one parent has, or has had, a mental illness. Given the role of schools in children's academic as well as psychosocial development, it was considered important to identify effective strategies that school personnel have used in supporting such children. Parents and…

Authors discuss crazymaking; distorted feedback in communications children have with others. Examples and results of distorted communication are discussed in addition to ways in which these distortions inhibit a child's construction of reality and ways to prevent distorted feedback. (HS)

This book summarizes the major research findings that show how to substantially increase student achievement. This book draws on a number of investigators who have statistically synthesized many studies. A new education method showing superior results in 90% of the studies concerning it has more credibility than a method that shows results in only…

This paper was written for high school teachers and other youth workers, who are looking for effective ways to support and assist adolescents as they deal with their complex, and often painful, changing family relationships. It describes A Family Drama Workshop, a series of seminars on families and communication, which was developed and presented…

Strategies teachers can use to teach parents to teach their children to be prosocial are described. These strategies include teaching incidentally, performing social skills autopsies, coaching emotions, and assigning homework. Issues to be considered when working with parents and children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are…