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Although research has confirmed that the first COVID-19-related lockdown has increased stress and mental health problems in children, less is known about the longer-term effects of the pandemic on children's COVID-related future anxiety (CRFA). Because of CRFA's potentially debilitating effects, risk and resilience factors against this anxiety were investigated. To this end, n = 140 children (49% female) in 3rd and 4th grade classrooms in Germany were asked to perform a working memory task and to self-report about their CRFA and emotion regulation in December 2020 and in May 2021. More maladaptive emotion regulation in December 2020 contributed to the explanation of a high CRFA score in May 2021, whereas a better performance on working memory updating contributed a lower CRFA score later when controls were in place. These results were confirmed when children's CRFA in December 2020 was included in the prediction of their later CRFA. They suggest that maladaptive strategies of emotion regulation, such as rumination, may explain higher or increasing levels of CRFA, whereas efficient working memory updating may be an indicator of processing information in a way which shields children from CRFA-related thoughts. The concepts underlying these variables should be included in prevention and intervention efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research confirms that climate change is having serious negative effects on children's and adolescents' mental health. Being aware of global warming, its dramatic consequences for individual and collective goals, and the urgent need for action to prevent further warming seems to be so overwhelming for young people that it may lead to paralyzing emotions like (future) anxiety, worries, shame, guilt, and reduced well-being overall. Many children and adolescents feel hopeless in view of the challenges posed by the transformations towards a sustainable future. Feeling powerless widens the gap between knowledge and action which in turn may exacerbate feelings of hopelessness. One of the tasks for parents, educators, and policymakers is therefore to empower young people to act against global warming, both individually and collectively. Psychological resources were identified as precursors of pro-environmental behavior. A theoretical model (and accompanying empirical research) is presented which elaborates on the links between self-efficacy, self-acceptance, mindfulness, capacity for pleasure, construction of meaning, and solidarity on the one hand, and subjective well-being and sustainable behavior on the other hand. This literature review suggests starting points for programs that aim to promote both psychological resources, subjective well-being, and individual and collective pro-environmental behaviors in young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Findings: In order to examine the explanatory power of behavioral self-regulation in the domain of emotion knowledge, especially in a non-U.S. culture, 365 German 4- and 5-year-olds were individually tested on these constructs. Path analyses revealed that children's behavioral self-regulation explained their emotion knowledge in the context of the less instructionally oriented German kindergarten, much like in the United States. In addition, behavioral self-regulation contributed uniquely to the explanation of German children's emotion knowledge, even when language skills and a measure of verbal conflict inhibition as known predictors of emotion knowledge were included as covariates. The path model for the 4-year-olds underlined the importance of behavioral self-regulation and showed less integration among verbal conflict inhibition, language skills, and emotion knowledge than that for the 5-year-olds. Practice or Policy: Results underline the importance of self-regulation for young children's learning about emotions in all cultures, alone and in tandem with receptive language skills and abilities for (verbal) inhibition.

Introduction: Although the first COVID-19-related lockdown in the Spring of 2020 has contributed to an increase in mental health problems in many children worldwide, less is known about the longer-term effects of the pandemic on their (future) anxiety. This article examines resilience factors against children's Covidrelatedfut ure anxiety (CRFA). Methods: N = 140 children (48,6% female) in 3rd and 4th grade classrooms in Northern Germany were asked to self-report about their CRFA, their anxiety, and the social climate in their classrooms in September (T1) and December 2020 (T2). Results: Results indicate that 18.6% of the children experienced CRFA "often" in at least one item of the CRFA scale at T1. CRFA was more pronounced in girls and in children from immigrant families. Changes in children's CRFA between T1 and T2 were predicted by changes in their anxiety and changes in classroom climate. Children in classrooms with increasing levels of peer support tended to have decreasing levels of CRFA, whereas their agemates' CRFA in less supportive classrooms tended to increase over time. Discussion: These results suggest that peer and teacher social support may bolster children's resilience against future anxiety in challenging times. Implications for teachers and schools are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Knowing about emotions is vital for children’s school adjustment, well-being, and future social relationships. Whereas experiencing emotions is a universal psychological process at the biological level, how emotions are categorized and communicated is shaped by culture. Most studies have investigated cultural differences in emotion (knowledge) in Western and Eastern cultures. To compare emotion knowledge within Western countries, N = 585 children from Germany and N = 100 children from Israel in the two age groups preschool (42–71 months) and primary school (72–89 months) were interviewed with the Adaptive Test of Emotion Knowledge for Three- to Nine-Year-Olds (ATEM 3-9). Generalized linear models (GLMs) indicate that children from Israel showed higher levels of emotion knowledge in the total score and in all seven components of emotion knowledge than their agemates from Germany. These results highlight the importance of differences in family structure and values within Western countries. It is important to determine the various factors and the socialization in the family and in educational institutions that influence emotion knowledge in Germany and Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because emotion knowledge and language skills each contribute to children's success in school and life, the Feeling Thinking Talking (FTT) intervention combines the advancement of language skills and of emotion knowledge in teachers' child‐directed conversations. Teachers from centers of early childhood education in Germany were taught language support strategies (LSS) and how to apply them during emotion talk while reading picture books, while reminiscing about emotional events, and in everyday conversations with the children in their care. The evaluation of the FTT intervention entailed a comparison between the FTT group (N = 43) and a business‐as‐usual (BAU) control group (N = 67) with N = 110 children (Mage = 49.41 months, range = 33–66 months at T1) who were individually tested using objective tests on receptive vocabulary and emotion knowledge before (T1) and after the FTT intervention (T2), and in a follow‐up 3–6 months later (T3). After a multiple imputation procedure, mixed multilevel models indicated that the children taught by the FTT group teachers made faster progress in their emotion knowledge than their agemates in the BAU condition, especially in their knowledge of mixed emotions, when numerous covariates were controlled. Results suggest that young children's emotion knowledge can be promoted alongside with language skills by a teacher‐led intervention supporting child‐directed emotion talk in early childhood education. Discussion focuses on emotion talk as the mechanism for the transmission of emotion knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with an advanced knowledge of emotions are generally more socially competent, less likely to suffer from psychopathology, and more likely to succeed in school, both socially and academically. The assessment of children's emotion knowledge has thus gained importance in recent decades - both in psychiatric practice and in developmental and educational psychology. However, there is still a lack of appropriate instruments for assessing children's emotion knowledge in a performance test reliably, and for a broad age range. The Adaptive Test of Emotion Knowledge (ATEM 3-9) is a newly developed measure which encompasses seven components of emotion knowledge in 3-9-year-olds. The ATEM 3-9 is an adaptive test which uses skip and dropout rules to adjust for children's varying levels of knowledge. In addition to German, the ATEM has been translated into English and Hebrew. The German norming sample of the ATEM 3-9 comprises N = 882 (54% female, 21% bilingual) children between the ages of 3 and 9 years, who were divided into seven age groups. Test items, which are ordered according to the item response theory, showed a good fit to a seven-dimensional model reflecting the seven components. The internal consistencies of the dimensions are acceptable to good. Construct validity was examined by means of correlations with other measures of emotion knowledge, as well as measures on language skills and executive functions in a subsample. This resulted in medium size correlations in the expected directions. In addition, children with externalizing and internalizing disorders who were recruited in psychiatric in- and outpatient clinics showed deficits in various components of emotion knowledge when compared to their agemates in the norming sample. Overall, the ATEM 3-9 is well suited to measure individual components of emotion knowledge in children and to obtain a differentiated picture of the various aspects of emotion knowledge. The ATEM3-9 thus supports the investigation of the development of social-emotional competencies in normative development (e.g., school readiness) and in social-emotional-learning interventions. Furthermore, it is suitable as an instrument for the differentiated assessment of (progress of) children's emotion knowledge in clinical child psychology and psychiatry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Procrastination remains an omnipresent phenomenon impeding especially students' academic performance and well-being. Preliminary findings suggest that procrastination emerges due to dysfunctional emotion regulation efforts to regulate aversive emotions. This study's objective was to clarify whether the enhancement of general adaptive emotion regulation skills reduces subsequent procrastination. For the purpose of this study, data from a two-armed randomized controlled trial (RCT) with (N = 148) university students, comprising an active intervention (IG) and a passive wait-list control (WLC) group, was collected. Participants of the intervention group were provided with an online emotion regulation training over a period of 9 weeks. The results showed that the enhancement of general emotion regulation skills significantly reduced subsequent procrastination behavior within the IG as compared to the untreated WLC. Moreover, subsequent mediation analyses revealed that the reduction of procrastination was significantly mediated by the increase in general ER skills. The present results suggest that trainings which enhance general ER skills are an appropriate measure to reduce procrastination behavior among university students. The practical value of ER training interventions, particularly for student populations, is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feeling thinking talking (FTT) intervention was designed because early childhood seems to be a prime time for fostering young children's language skills. This intervention involved teaching teachers from N = 28 kindergarten groups in N = 13 German kindergartens language support strategies (LSS) to be used in everyday conversations with the children in their care. The FTT intervention was evaluated in a business-as-usual control group design with N = 281 children (mean age = 49.82 months, range = 33-66 months at T1, mixed SES) who were individually tested using objective tests on grammar, vocabulary and working memory before (T1) and after the FTT intervention (T2), and in a follow-up about one year after T1 (T3). After propensity matching was applied, multilevel models demonstrated that the children taught by the intervention group teachers made faster progress in their understanding of sentences, their application of morphological rules, and their memory for sentences when numerous covariates (child age, gender, behavioral self-regulation, multilingual upbringing, and family SES) were controlled. Results suggest that complex language processing abilities in young children can be promoted by a teacher-led intervention in early childhood education. Improved language skills will further all children's academic and social success in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bidirectional relations are likely to exist between adolescents’ friendship involvement and their emotional competencies. Therefore, longitudinal selection and socialization effects were probed in a sample of N = 299 German adolescents in a 30-month study that started in grade 7 (152 boys, M age = 12.6 years). Cross-lagged panel modeling of the three waves of measurement indicated a pattern of initial selection effects followed by socialization effects, which are best described as spiral effects. Adolescents who were more willing to self-disclose emotions at T1 had more reciprocal friends at T2, which in turn contributed to an increase in their emotional self-disclosure at T3, even after controlling for previous friendship involvement, previous emotional self-disclosure, peer acceptance, gender, and classroom membership. Adolescents with less adaptive coping with sadness and tendencies towards social isolation at T1 were likely to have fewer friends at T2, which in turn intensified these reclusive tendencies at T3. Upward and downward spiral effects are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescents’ close friendships are an important and unique learning context in which adolescents can practice and hone their emotion regulation skills within an egalitarian, supportive relationship structure that provides important feedback on the effectiveness of the regulation strategies. This longitudinal study examined whether adolescents’ involvement in supportive reciprocal friendships influenced the way in which they regulated angry feelings arising in these friendships. A sample of 299 German adolescents began a 30-month, 3-wave longitudinal study in grade 7 (151 boys, M age = 12.6 years; 100% White). They completed a social network inventory (LueNIC), a peer-nomination measure, and the questionnaire on Strategies of Anger Regulation for Adolescents (SAR-A) in every wave. Cross-lagged-panel modeling indicated a pattern of socialization effects even when controlling for previous friendship involvement, previous anger regulation, peer acceptance, gender, classroom membership, and possible friendship selection influences. Adolescents with more reciprocal friends at Time 1 (T1) reported using aggressive strategies of anger regulation (i.e., verbal and relational aggression, fantasies of revenge) and ignoring the friend less often at Time 2 (T2). Similar results were obtained between T2 and Time 3 (T3). There was a marginally significant effect for one of three non-aggressive strategies such that a higher involvement in friendships at T2 explained more reappraisal of the anger-eliciting event at T3 but significant effects did not emerge for the strategies of redirection of attention and explanation and reconciliation. The results are discussed within a socialization of emotion framework with implications for social skills training modules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention problems are likely to hinder children in acquiring knowledge of their own and others' emotions. Children with little knowledge of emotions tend to have difficulties with representing emotions, interpreting them, and sharing them, so that they are likely to spend more time in making sense of them and may thus appear to be inattentive. In order to disentangle the direction of effects between emotion knowledge and attention problems, 576 four- to- six-year-olds were interviewed at T1 and about 12 months later (T2) about their emotion knowledge. Their kindergarten teachers rated their attention problems, and their conduct problems at T1 and T2. A cross-lagged panel model indicates that children's emotion knowledge at T1 contributed to the explanation of their attention problems at T2, after language ability and attention problems at T1 were controlled. The other cross-path from attention problems (T1) to emotion knowledge (T2) was not significant. Adding gender, behavioral self-regulation, working memory, conduct problems, or SES as alternative explanations by third variables did not alter this direction of effects. How emotion knowledge impinges on attention problems is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In order to assess the unique contributions of non-verbal cognitive abilities and attention to young children's emotion understanding, a total of N =274 four-to-six-year-old children were tested individually. Hierarchical regression results suggest that the children's non-verbal reasoning abilities, their attention performance test scores, and their kindergarten teachers' attention ratings all predict their emotion understanding above and beyond their age and their receptive language skills. When the children's non-verbal cognitive ability was included as a predictor in the model, attention (in either performance or teacher rating) did not explain any additional variance in their emotion understanding. The discussion centers on relations between non-verbal cognitive abilities and emotion understanding. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A one-year longitudinal study with 324 German third and fourth graders was conducted in order to find out whether a preference for violent electronic games socializes children to become more aggressive or whether aggressive individuals tend to select this type of game. Cross-lagged panel analyses suggest that children who were rated as openly aggressive at Time 1 intensified their preference for violent electronic games over time. We determined that it could be ruled out that this selection effect was due to a number of underlying variables ranging from ecological variables (neighborhood) to family variables (migration status, older brother) and child variables (gender, self-esteem, level of achievement). Discussion focuses on the emerging preference for violent electronic games among children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This literature review outlines the challenges and constraints which relationships to parents, peers, and friends offer for children's emotional development, including the development of appraisal, experience, expression, and regulation of emotion. Parents are important for their children's emotional development not only because they are attachment figures but also because of their cognitive and emotional expertise who instruct their offspring on the use of emotion labels, appraisals, expressions, and regulation strategies. In addition, parents introduce their children to cultural and subcultural rules on emotions. Yet parents' understanding of their children's emotions may be constrained by their social role as parents. Converging evidence suggests that display rules among peers promote the dampening of many emotions in many situations, especially those of vulnerability and anger. School-age children's increasing use of distancing strategies may help them achieve this "cool" public self-presentation. Intimate friendship's which permit (and may even require) the disclosure of private emotional experiences challenge preadolescents to learn how to be supportive to the friend in need and how to manage anger and contempt in these close relationships. Handling issues of trust and exposure, jealousy, and envy are related challenges for friendships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses interactions and relationships between girls and boys in elementary school. There is a consensus in the literature that the years between entering school at the age of six and the onset of puberty represent a phase of life in which boys and girls have little in common. This, together with the concept of a latency period implying sexual indifference, probably explains why researchers have devoted only scant attention to interactions and relationships between girls and boys of this age. Sociometricians in psychology and sociology have found, for some decades and in different cultures, that children of this age establish relationships and groups mainly among members of their own sex, these findings likewise provide only little incentive for examining relationships between boys and girls. The few studies on children of this age focus on groups, which are homogeneous in sex. Proceeding from the evidence of sex-segregated groups, research on the socialization of gender identity has concentrated on the influence of same-sex peers in elaborating typically male or female behavior.

Introduces a series of articles dealing with emotional development in interpersonal relationships. Observation of preschool children in both school and playground settings; Comparison of influence of the mother-child and teacher-child relationship on the expression of sympathy; Youngsters' self-reported experience of emotions.