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Using data from age 3 of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, the current study explores the complex relationships between U.S. childcare subsidies and neglect. Specifically, the study examines two research questions: (i) Are U.S. childcare subsidies associated with self‐reported neglect among low‐income mothers? (ii) What individual types of self‐reported neglect are significantly reduced by receipt of childcare subsidy? Using negative binomial regression examining the relationships among mothers who were income‐eligible for childcare subsidy, we found that childcare subsidy was associated with lower levels of supervisory neglect, indicating an important role of subsidy in the lives of low‐income families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although academic benefits of pre‐K are well established, the associations between pre‐K attendance and social and learning behaviours are less clear. Some research suggests that pre‐K attenders may enter and exit kindergarten exhibiting less optimal social and learning behaviours than their non‐attending peers, and little attention has been paid to how aspects of kindergarten experiences, like academic rigour, activity settings and teacher–student relationships, may contribute to these patterns of development. The current study addresses these gaps in knowledge by using nationally representative data from the ECLSK:2011 (n = 14,260) to examine the social and learning behaviours of pre‐K attenders and nonattenders at kindergarten entry and exit. Our results reveal that pre‐K attenders are not consistently underperforming their non‐attending peers on social and learning behaviours in kindergarten. However, teachers reported that pre‐K attenders exhibited more externalising behaviour problems at kindergarten entry and exit, and non‐attenders made greater gains in learning behaviours over the kindergarten year. We also found no evidence of moderation when examining our focal classroom experience variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mothers who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) are at increased risk for experiencing workplace instability in the form of absence from paid employment and job loss. In a cross-sectional study, we investigate if experiences of IPV inhibit work stability among low-income women as well as if the receipt of child care subsidies has a moderating effect on the relationship. Using data from the Illinois Families Study, we tested the relationships between IPV, work outcomes, and recipient of child care subsidies in a series of multivariate regressions. Findings indicate IPV is associated with reduced hours worked among low-income mothers and increased unemployment among low-income mothers. However, both of these relationships are moderated by receipt of child care subsidies suggesting that mothers who experience IPV can maintain employment at the same level as women not experiencing IPV with receipt of child care subsidies. Our findings indicate the importance of receiving child care subsidies among low-income mothers and support subsidy accessibility to survivors of IPV. Results of our study are limited in regard to the age of the data, the cross-sectional use of the data, and the lack of a control group that was not receiving any type of government assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the relations between two aspects of peer experiences in preschool classrooms and children's math and literacy development during kindergarten transition. Based on the theoretical framework of classroom ecology model, peer experiences were represented by classroom social network and teachers' grouping preferences. The outcomes included standardized math and literacy assessments collected from three time-points, fall of preschool, spring of preschool and fall of kindergarten. The analytical sample included 367 children recruited from 47 preschool classrooms located in two large school districts. Children completed peer-nomination tasks to characterize the classroom social network and teachers completed questionnaires to describe their grouping preferences. We conducted a multilevel longitudinal model to estimate the effects of classroom-level predictors on the trajectories of skill growth. We found that indices of classroom social network – density and centralization – were significantly associated with math and literacy development: more dense classrooms positively predicted math and literacy development whereas more centralized classrooms negatively predicted math and literacy development. Teachers' attention to children's skill levels in creating grouping structure was positively associated with math and literacy development. These findings indicate that young children's peer experiences are potentially important indicators of classroom quality, as they are associated with children's academic development over the course of preschool year into kindergarten transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the relationship between demographic characteristics and kindergarten children's extracurricular activity participation and the association between extracurricular activity participation and children's expressive vocabulary. Results indicated that children's (n = 401 children in 31 classrooms; female = 50.1%; M age = 5.6 years) participation in extracurricular activities varied by their demographic backgrounds such as race, gender, mother's education, and income. Multilevel analyses revealed no associations between extracurricular activity participation and expressive vocabulary. Our findings emphasize the inequalities in young children's access to and participation in extracurricular activities. To promote more equitable access early in young children's education, stakeholders should consider the implications of demographic characteristics related to extracurricular participation and make concerted efforts to extend opportunities to children of varying backgrounds and resources. • Demographic characteristics contribute to differential extracurricular access. • Gaps in extracurricular opportunity access exist as early as kindergarten. • Mother's education contributes to large gaps in extracurricular participation. • Extracurricular activities unrelated to expressive vocabulary for kindergarteners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used a short-term longitudinal design to examine the extent to which kindergartners': (a) peer relationships are associated with their school absenteeism; and (b) development of positive peer relationships vary as a function of their time spent in school. To address these aims, data were drawn from 801 kindergartners across 64 classrooms and 15 schools in a Midwest city in the United States. Results from covariate-adjusted regression models revealed that kindergartners' relational bonds were not predictive of their time away from school, and that their relationships with classmates were generally unaffected by absenteeism. There was, however, some indication that children's relationships with their classmates were more strongly predicted by their absenteeism for children from less educated households relative to children from more educated households.

State-level policies in Ohio during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. involved physical school closures and work-from-home requirements when possible. Presumably, these policies and resulting impacts on homes with children would alter parent time investments in their children with respect to home-learning activities. In this study, we assessed parent time investments specific to home-learning activities with their children, and key predictors of these investments. Using data from a comprehensive survey completed by 559 caregivers of children (aged birth to 9 years) during a state-mandated stay-at-home order and widespread school closure, we assessed whether parent time investments in children's learning were associated with: (1) parents' mental health and social connectedness, (2) children's level of emotional distress, and (3) household characteristics including chaos, social needs, and structure. Results indicate significant negative associations between each of parent loneliness, children's emotional distress, and household chaos with parent time investments in children's learning, controlling for parents' socio-demographic and economic status. This suggests that parent time investments during the early stages of the pandemic were limited by a number of factors outside of socioeconomic resources. Further research is needed to understand the long-term effects of home environments, including parent time investments in children's learning, on child development during this unprecedented time in world history.

Purpose: Children and young adults underutilize behavioral health services, in part due to the challenges with identifying and providing services for child behavioral health in primary care. The objective of this study was to determine if a brief assessment of family functioning captures specific child psychosocial symptoms in a Family Medicine practice., Design and Methods: Eighty-three parent child dyads, in which the parent or child was a patient at the Family Medicine practice, participated in a cross-sectional study, including assessments of demographics, family functioning, child behavioral health symptoms, and health related pediatric quality of life (HRQOL). Bivariate correlations, independent samples t-test, and linear and logistic regression tested associations of parent and child reported family functioning with child behavioral health symptoms and HRQOL., Results: Parent and child reports of family functioning were significantly associated. Child, but not parent reports of family functioning were significantly associated with parent and child reports of behavioral health symptoms. Parent's reports of increased family functioning impairment were only significantly associated with parent's reports of decreased HRQOL. Family functioning impairment was associated with parent and child reports of increased behavioral health symptoms and decreased HRQOL., Conclusion: Future work should determine if screening for family functioning impairment, may serve as a means of identifying and treating child behavioral health symptoms in Family Medicine., Practice Implications: Identifying impaired family functioning may serve to engage children and their parents in services, who may otherwise not be identified as having symptoms., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: This study examines the media use of children from low-income homes during school closings during the COVID-19 pandemic., Methods: Caregivers of 151 kindergarteners from low-income homes completed questionnaires as part of a larger study. Caregivers reported how much time children spent watching television/videos and using apps on the most recent weekday and weekend days. Caregivers also reported how their child's current use of media for several different purposes compared with how much the child usually uses media for that purpose., Results: Weekly average media use was 46.3 hours or 6.6 hours per day. Counter to previous research, weekday media use was higher than weekend media use, suggesting that media was likely used as a replacement for time usually spent in school. Caregivers reported increased child media use for positive purposes, such as education and maintaining relationships with family and friends outside of the home, and potentially useful but less socially valued purposes, such as occupying the child's time while caregivers were completing other tasks. Having more children in the household was related to higher media use, and girls used media for maintaining remote relationships more than boys., Conclusion: These findings provide reason for both concern and optimism for the impacts of pandemic closures on low-income children. High levels of media use seem to be prevalent in this population. However, the diverse purposes for media use suggest that caregivers relied on media to supplement children's academic and social growth at a time when school and socializing were not safe in their typical forms., Competing Interests: Disclosure: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background . The health impact of youth mentors serving in the delivery of child nutrition and physical activity (PA) interventions on youth mentors themselves has been understudied. Objective . The primary objective of the current study was to examine the impact of engaging youth mentors in the delivery of a summertime childhood obesity prevention intervention on youth mentors' behavioral health. Method . Data were collected at baseline and postintervention. A survey of validated nutrition, mental health, PA, and psychosocial questionnaires was administered. Diet was assessed via 24-hour recall. Height, weight, and waist circumference (WC) were measured. In-depth interviews were conducted with youth mentors. Results . Eleven youth mentors enrolled: 60% were female, mean age was 16.1 ± 0.38 years, and 100% were Black. Mean kilocalories ( p = .05), sugar-sweetened beverage intake ( p = .08), and waist circumference ( p = .04) decreased. In-depth interviews were conducted with 11 youth mentors, and three themes emerged: perceived improvement in nutrition, PA, and mental health-related behaviors; formation of a positive role modeling relationship with the child campers; and strengthening of higher education goals and future career aspirations. Conclusions . Youth mentor staffing may be an important intervention strategy for changing health behaviors among youth mentors. Results from this study can be used to inform utilization of youth mentors in the delivery of this and similar health behavior interventions in the future.

There is increasing recognition that young children's self-regulation provides a foundation for overall wellness later in life. Yet, infants reared in poverty may exhibit less-developed self-regulation compared to their more advantaged peers. Factors associated with poverty that may influence early self-regulation include maternal depression and parenting self-efficacy. However, few researchers have examined how both parenting self-efficacy and maternal depression may affect young children's self-regulation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations among maternal depression, parenting self-efficacy, and infant self-regulation for a racially diverse sample of 142 mother-infant dyads living in low-income households in the United States. Maternal depressive symptomatology was determined with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depressive Scale. Parenting self-efficacy was determined with a self-report measure, reflecting caregivers' mindset or feelings reflecting competency as a parent of an infant. Infant self-regulation was measured by parental report of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire Short Form Effortful Control subscale. While maternal depressive symptomatology and self-efficacy were directly and significantly correlated with infant self-regulation, results of a mediation model suggested that parenting self-efficacy mediated the relationship between maternal depressive symptomatology and infant self-regulation. Lower maternal depressive symptomatology predicted better parenting self-efficacy, in turn predicting better infant self-regulation. This study increases our understanding of how early factors shape the self-regulation of infants reared in low-income homes - highlighting the potential role of targeting parenting self-efficacy for parenting interventions for mothers experiencing depressive symptoms., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: There are no actual or perceived conflicts of interest in the conduct or reporting of this research.

Objectives: The aim of our study is to explore the relationships between neighborhood context, perceived social support, and parenting for low-income mothers with young infants., Methods: Data were collected during the first three time points from the Kids in Columbus Study, a 5-year longitudinal study on low-income families. Mother-child dyads (n = 228) were recruited from five Women, Infants, and Children Centers located in a Midwestern Metropolitan area. Data for the present study represents mother-child dyads that had completed time point 1 (infant age birth to 3-months), time point 2 (infant age 4 to 7 months), and 3 (infant age 9- to 12-months old)., Results: Social support and neighborhood quality were associated with both maternal perceptions and observed parenting outcomes. Social support positively predicted maternal perceptions of self-efficacy whereas neighborhood quality was positively related to parent involvement., Discussion: Overall, social support and neighborhood quality were related to aspects of parenting in the first year of children's lives. There was no evidence that the association between social support and parenting varied as a function of neighborhood quality. This finding suggests the neighborhood qualities captured in our study do not influence mothers' ability to access social support during infancy.

Objectives The study examined the relations between parent-child interaction in the first year of life to toddlers' language skills at age 2 years for a sample of children reared in poverty; of specific interest was testing the Family Stress Model, which proposes that the conditions of poverty influence children's language skills through caregiver well-being (e.g., distress, depression) and interaction dysregulation. Methods Participants were from the Kids in Columbus Study, a birth-cohort study of children born to urban families experiencing material hardship. Caregiver questionnaires were collected when the child was 4-7 months to document poverty conditions (maternal hardship, institutional resources), caregiver well-being (depression, distress), and dysregulation in parent-child interactions. The Bayley-III assessed receptive and expressive language skills when the children were 2 years. Results On average, receptive language skills were nearly 1 SD below the normative mean. Path models showed a significant effect of caregiver-child dysregulated interactions on toddlers' language skills, and an indirect effect of maternal distress on parent-child interactions and, in turn, toddlers' language skills. Conclusions for Practice This study confirmed the theoretical Family Stress Model as a viable representation of the effects of poverty on the language skills of toddlers reared in homes experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage.

Introduction: Understanding why adolescent subjective assessments of status matter to their psychosocial outcomes over and above objective assessments of socioeconomic status (SES) requires a better comprehension of how adolescents construct status in themselves and others. Using a qualitative approach, the goal of the current study was to better understand what factors adolescents use to assign status, and how their perceptions of this status vary according to their own SES., Method: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 32 adolescents from Quebec, Canada, from varied socioeconomic backgrounds. In particular, they were shown the ladder from the Subjective Social Status Scale and asked what defined scale placement in their communities. They were also asked where they would place themselves on this scale, and why., Results: The importance of traditional indicators of SES such as money, educational level, and occupational prestige were underlined by almost all adolescents, but other factors (e.g., wellbeing, family life, values concerning work, other-orientation, or rule-following) were also frequently discussed. Adolescents used similar criteria in the placement of themselves and others. Contradictions often emerged, however, as adolescents' scale placement was often higher than what would be expected based on traditional SES indicators., Conclusions: These findings provide a starting point for understanding why adolescents' subjective assessments of status may matter above and beyond traditional assessments of SES, and how we can better measure this construct., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Using nationally representative data from the Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 cohort (n = 2,842), this study examined the implications of 3- and 4-year-old's absences from Head Start for their early academic learning. The findings from this study revealed that children who missed more days of school, and especially those who were chronically absent, demonstrated fewer gains in areas of math and literacy during the preschool year. Moreover, excessive absenteeism was found to detract from the potential benefits of quality preschool education and was especially problematic for the early learning of children who entered the Head Start program with a less developed skill set. Implications for policy and practice are discussed., (© 2017 The Authors. Child Development © 2017 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.)

Because children from low-income families benefit from preschool but are less likely than other children to enroll, identifying factors that promote their enrollment can support research and policy aiming to reduce socioeconomic disparities in education. In this study, we tested an accommodations model with data on 6,250 children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort. In general, parental necessity (e.g., maternal employment) and human capital considerations (e.g., maternal education) most consistently predicted preschool enrollment among children from low-income families. Supply side factors (e.g., local child care options) and more necessity and human capital factors (e.g., having fewer children, desiring preparation for school) selected such children into preschool over parental care or other care arrangements, and several necessity factors (e.g., being less concerned about costs) selected them into non-Head Start preschools over Head Start programs. Systemic connections and child elicitation did not consistently predict preschool enrollment in this population., ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)