What enhances the development of emotion understanding in young children? A longitudinal study of interpersonal predictors

We studied potential determinants of the development of children's emotion understanding (EU) from age 4 to 6 in a Norwegian community sample (N = 974) using the Test of Emotion Comprehension. Interpersonal predictors included the accuracy of parental mentalization, parental emotional availability, and teacher‐reported child social skills. Intrapersonal child factors were child gender and verbal skills. Overall, children's EU increased significantly over time. After adjusting for child gender, age‐4 EU, and parental socio‐economic status, greater child verbal and social skills and greater parental mentalization each uniquely predicted growth in EU. Results are discussed in terms of theory and research on children's EU and parents' emotion socialization.     

Parents,parenting, and children's sleep problems: Exploring reciprocal effects

Longitudinal analysis of data on 658 children/families from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development addressed two issues regarding children's sleep problems (measured by maternal report in third and sixth grades when the child was 8 and 11 years old, respectively) and family functioning (measured using observations and questionnaires in third and fifth grades when the child was 8 and 10 years old): (1) Do family factors/processes in third grade predict change over time in child sleep problems and, reciprocally (2) Do child sleep problems when the child is in third grade predict change in family factors/processes? Results indicated that sleep problems were adversely affected (increased more/decreased less over time) when, in third grade, the father was absent, mothers were younger, experienced more negative emotions and were less sensitive in interacting with the child, and when the mother–child relationship was characterized by less closeness/more conflict. No linkages involving fathers and fathering were detected. Reciprocally, more sleep problems in the third grade predicted adverse changes in maternal negative emotionality, maternal sensitivity, and maternal closeness/conflict. Discussion highlights the need to conceptualize family functioning and children's sleep problems in family systems’ terms (i.e. reciprocal effects).