Social ecological and dynamic systems theories propose that human development is shaped by the cumulative impact of social interactions in proximal and distal settings, which are themselves influenced by social and economic forces. The understanding of the links between microsystem-level factors (such as parenting styles and parent-child…

Research Findings: This study examined the unique and relative contributions of mothers' and fathers' parental control and coparenting to toddlers' committed compliance with parents in both dyadic parent-child and triadic family play contexts. Sixty-eight mostly middle-class, 2-parent families with toddlers (16-37 months) were observed in a…

Objectives: Corporal punishment is still widely practiced around the globe, despite the large body of child development research that substantiates its short- and long-term consequences. Within this context, this paper examined the relationship between parental use of corporal punishment and youth externalizing behavior with a Chilean sample to…

Background: Maternal executive function and household regulation both are critical aspects of optimal childrearing, but their interplay is not understood. We tested the hypotheses that (a) the link between challenging child conduct problems and harsh parenting would be strongest for mothers with poorer executive function and weakest among those…

Mainstream education often misunderstands the ways that some rural black families display involvement in their children's lives. Teachers may tend to attribute children's academic struggles to what they perceived as a lack of care, concern, and involvement of the families. Such views could keep children from reaching and exceeding their potential,…

Amid debates about the continued salience of gender in mathematics, this report summarizes an IES-funded investigation of gender-related patterns in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). Girls' and boys' mathematics achievement, confidence, and interest were examined, along with experiences at home and…

Background: Evidence-based psychosocial interventions such as parent training programs are strongly recommended as first-line treatment for preschool-age children with or at-risk of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). Objective: Evaluate the effectiveness of the Incredible Years Basic Parent Training (IY) in hyperactive and…

This paper presents findings from a selective review of the literature related to predictors of school readiness in literacy and mathematics. School readiness was defined as what children are expected to know and do in a variety of academic domains and processes of learning prior to entering a formal classroom setting. Seven themes emerged, based…

Although studies have established associations between parenting characteristics and adolescent suicidality, the strength of the evidence for these links remains unclear, largely because of methodological limitations, including lack of accounting for possible child effects on parenting. This study addresses these issues by using autoregressive…

Study Objective. To test whether sleep duration on school nights differs between adolescents in Australia and the United States and, if so, whether this difference is explained by cultural differences in school start time, parental involvement in setting bedtimes, and extracurricular commitments. Participants. Three hundred eighty-five adolescents…

Electronic communications technologies (ECTs) help college students and parents remain in contact. Because recent reports have emphasized a link between ECTs, helicopter parenting, and autonomy issues, this study focused on the significance of contact patterns for attachment and student adjustment. First-semester college students (199 female, 81…

This study explores the associations between mothers' religiosity, and families' and children's functioning in a stratified random sample of 695 Catholic and Protestant mother-child dyads in socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a region which has experienced centuries of sectarian conflict between Protestant Unionists and…

The current study examined the explanatory role of satisfaction of parental psychological needs in effects of childhood aggression on various adolescent-perceived parenting behaviors in middle adolescence. Research questions were examined in a large multi-informant, prospective community study of ethnic majority Belgian families…

The current longitudinal study used data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) to examine a model of development that emphasizes early caregiving environments as predictors of social emotional competence (including classroom competence). This path analysis…

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…