Conflict resolution and children’s behaviour: observing and understanding social and cooperative play in early years educational settings

Preschool staffs' responsiveness affects children’s behaviour, their difficulties, and engagement in the preschool context, but children’s behaviour and characteristics also affect staff responsiveness. Early second language learners (L2-learners) have been shown to have more problems with behaviour and emotions and lower engagement in preschool. Being engaged in preschool activities predicts future academic performance, attitude towards school and well-being in the short and long term, and can be promoted by the preschool staff. Knowledge of which factors support engagement in preschool for L2-learners can help prevent, in the early years, negative pathways based on low engagement and problems with behaviour and emotions. This cross-sectional study used data from a longitudinal study to investigate the relationship between child engagement and staff responsiveness as well as how child age, child problems with behaviour and emotions, child group size, and the child:staff ratio impact child engagement and staff responsiveness. The study also investigated whether these relations differ between L2-learners and children learning Swedish as their first language (L1-learners). Preschool staff (N = 611) reported through questionnaires on engagement, age, problems with behaviour and emotions and emotional symptoms of 832 children aged 13–71 months, as well as on staffing and staff responsiveness. With a path analysis extended by multi-group analysis, we found two models suggesting that age, problems with behaviour and emotions and preschool staff responsiveness influence child engagement, irrespective of background. The study also found that child engagement significantly influenced staff responsiveness. The multi-group analysis only weakly supported the hypothesis that the child’s age affects staff responsiveness more strongly for L2-learners. The results indicate that individual children and child groups themselves can affect the responsiveness of their staff, and that children with low engagement risk being neglected. L2-learners are at increased risk since they tend to display lower engagement and more behaviour problems in preschool in general. If not attended to early, the lower engagement already apparent among L2-learners in preschool can create stable patterns of low engagement and problems with behaviour and emotions that extend beyond the preschool years and having negative effects on the children’s later well-being and school performance.

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Early Years Educator ◽

10.12968/eyed.2017.19.7.46 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 19 (7) ◽

pp. 46-48

Keyword(s):

Early Childhood ◽

Emotional Development ◽

Early Years ◽

Social And Emotional Development ◽

Childhood Education ◽

Social And Emotional ◽

School Learning ◽

Learning Alliance ◽

Children’S Behaviour ◽

Father And Son

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Does Gender Moderate the Association Between Children's Behaviour and Teacher-Child Relationship in the Early Years?

Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling ◽

10.1017/jgc.2014.3 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 197-214 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Kevin C. Runions

Keyword(s):

Relationship Quality ◽

Role Expectations ◽

Early Years ◽

Emotional Wellbeing ◽

Child Gender ◽

Gender Expectations ◽

Teachers Perceptions ◽

Self Reflection ◽

Child Relationship ◽

Children’S Behaviour

Prior research has shown that teacher-child relationship quality predicts school emotional wellbeing and academic engagement, but it is unclear whether the relationship quality reflects teachers’ perceptions of children's social-emotional behaviours differently for girls and for boys. The purpose of this study was to examine whether teachers’ reports of relationship quality were differentially associated with children's behaviours depending on child gender. Teachers provided behavioural reports and ratings of closeness and conflict for children from kindergarten (n = 598), pre-primary (n = 496), and year 1 (n = 451). Of 19 significant associations, only 5 were moderated by gender, including hyperactivity and emotional problems. The findings suggest that, primarily, gender does not moderate how teachers’ perceptions of behaviours correlate with their ratings of relationship quality, but that gender role expectations may affect teacher-child relationship quality in some behavioural domains. Suggestions for counsellors working with teachers are presented that target teacher self-reflection on gender expectations, behavioural expectations and their intersection, to improve teacher-child relationship quality.

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Children, parenting and education: addressing the causes of offending

Policy Quarterly ◽

10.26686/pq.v5i2.4294 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Cindy Kiro

Keyword(s):

At Risk ◽

Early Intervention ◽

Young People ◽

Longitudinal Studies ◽

Parent Education ◽

Early Years ◽

Children’S Behaviour ◽

Persistent Offending ◽

Robust Evidence

Young people and adults who exhibit serious and persistent offending are usually found to have patterns of behaviour dating back to their early years. Findings from longitudinal studies and developments in neuroscience provide robust evidence of factors contributing to negative outcomes. The key to prevention lies in the early years and parents having a good understanding of their role in shaping their children’s behaviour. This paper outlines the importance of early intervention and the role of parent education in ensuring that children do not develop negative patterns of behaviour that place them at risk of later offending.

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TOWARDS PLAY-BASED LEARNING PRACTICE

Kajian Linguistik dan Sastra ◽

10.23917/kls.v1i1.2477 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 44

Author(s):

Dewi Mulia

Keyword(s):

Early Childhood ◽

Best Practices ◽

Early Years ◽

Government Support ◽

Educational Settings ◽

Relevant Research ◽

Learning Framework ◽

Child's Play

This paper provides the rationale for an overview and a discussion of the issues that affect best practices for play-based learning, particularly the implicationsof adults’ attitudes regarding child’s play and learning for play-based learning practice in early childhood educational settings in Indonesia. The conceptof play-based learning can be attributed to the National Early Years Learning Framework in Indonesia. However, the practice remains challenging as the result of diverse concepts of child’s play and learning. This discussion begins with an overview of the framework and of government support. It details the relevant research on the challenges that educators and teachers have faced with the implementation of the framework.

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The association between transition pattern of marital conflict resolution styles and marital quality trajectory during the early years of Chinese marriage

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships ◽

10.1177/0265407517721380 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 153-186 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Xiaomin Li ◽

Hongjian Cao ◽

Jing Lan ◽

Xiaoyan Ju ◽

Yingxian Zheng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conflict Resolution ◽

Marital Conflict ◽

Marital Quality ◽

Developmental Trajectories ◽

Early Years ◽

Latent Transition Analysis ◽

Transition Analysis ◽

Conflict Resolution Styles ◽

Curve Model ◽

Pattern Group

Based on three annual waves of data obtained from 194 Chinese couples during the first few years of marriage, this study examined how couples’ marital conflict resolution styles might change over time and also the association between such patterns of changes and the developmental trajectories of marital quality. Using latent transition analysis, at each of the three waves, we consistently identified four groups of couples based on the various types of strategies they employed when resolving marital conflicts: Cooperative Couples, Avoidant Couples, Aggressive Couples, and Aggressive Wife-Avoidant Husband Couples, and then we further classified couples into five groups based on their conflict resolution style transition patterns across the three waves: Steadily Constructive Pattern Group, More Constructive Pattern Group, Unpredictable Pattern Group, More Destructive Pattern Group, and Steadily Destructive Pattern Group. Lastly, utilizing the dyadic growth curve model, we linked the conflict resolution profiles identified at the first wave to both the initial levels of and the change rates of marital quality across waves and also linked the further identified conflict resolution style transition pattern groups to the change rates of marital quality across waves.

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Stella Chess and the History of American Child Psychiatry

Social History of Medicine ◽

10.1093/shm/hkaa004 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Laura D Hirshbein

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Child Psychiatry ◽

Working Women ◽

Early Years ◽

American Child ◽

History Of ◽

1960S And 1970S ◽

Children’S Behaviour ◽

The 1960S

Summary Throughout its history, American child psychiatry has been a hospitable specialty for women physicians. In its early years when practitioners were often steeped in psychoanalysis and influenced by theorists such as Anna Freud, many leaders within the field were women. By the 1960s and 1970s, child psychiatry was moving away from analysis and towards more research-based practice. The biography of an important leader in this area, New York University’s Stella Chess, illustrates the mechanism of that transformation and the role of ideas about mothers and working women. Chess, along with her husband and collaborator Alexander Thomas, gathered data to disprove the popular notion that mothers were to blame for children’s behaviour problems and demonstrated instead that issues resulted from a poor fit between a child’s temperament and his/her environment. Chess not only demanded that facts support theory, but also used her own parenting experiences and common sense to guide her work.

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