Implications of state policy context for the well-being of immigrant families with young children.

There is notable variation in state-level social policy exclusions for immigrant parents and their children. Little research has investigated how these exclusions impair the well-being of immigrant families. This study examined how state-level social policy exclusions for immigrants are associated with the well-being of immigrant parents and development of their children.

Parenting and family self-sufficiency services contribute to impacts of Early Head Start for children and families.

Introduction: There is evidence that two-generation early childhood programs, those that strive to support not only child development, but also optimal parenting and family wellbeing, help to foster resilience for young children and their families in the face of adversity.

Methods: Using data from a large experimental evaluation, the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, this paper explores how parenting and family self-sufficiency services embedded in Early Head Start (EHS), a federally funded, nationally implemented two-generation early childhood program for low-income families lasting from pregnancy and until children are three, contribute to the impacts of the program for both the children and their families.

Results: Parenting support in any modality (home visiting, case management or parent education) contributed to program impacts on important child and family outcomes, but not parent employment.

Mindfulness, coping, and disruptions as predictors of college student distress at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research examined how stressors experienced by college students within the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with their reports of psychological distress, mindfulness, and coping strategies. Students attending 11 universities in the U.S.

Mediation of the association between social environmental characteristics of family childcare home and weight status in children by diet quality.

Background: The food and beverages served in family childcare homes (FCCHs) may play an important role in the development of childhood overweight and obesity. This analysis examines whether children's diet quality mediates the relationship between foods and beverages served in FCCHs and preschool-aged children's weight status.

Methods: Trained and certified staff conducted observations for two days in each FCCH, using the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation (EPAO) measure to determine the foods and beverages served to children (N = 370) in FCCHs (N = 120).

Effect of Applying Best Practices for Physical Activity and Screen Time to Family Childcare Homes.

Introduction: Early childcare has been identified as an influential setting for children's physical activity. Our objective was to determine whether children aged 2 to 5 years had more accelerometer-measured minutes of physical activity when caregivers in their family childcare home (FCCH) adhered to best practices for physical activity and screen time.

Methods: We analyzed baseline 2-day observation data collected by using the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation measure from a cluster-randomized trial.

Caring for Whole Families: Relationships Between Providers and Families During Infancy and Toddlerhood.

Caring relationships among families and providers are at the heart of high-quality early care and education (ECE). This study examines relationships between parents and providers in a nationally representative sample of infants and toddlers and their families ( = 527) enrolled in the two-generation Early Head Start (EHS) program in the U.S.

Nutrition Practices of Family Child Care Home Providers and Children's Diet Quality.

Objective: To examine the relationship between the diet quality of children aged 2-5 years cared for in family child care homes (FCCHs) with provider adherence to nutrition best practices.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis.

Participants: Family child care home providers (n = 120, 100% female, 67.

Promoting reflective practice in an infant and early childhood training program.

Reflective practices provide a supportive base through which preservice infant and early childhood teachers and allied professionals can achieve knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions to support young children and their families. This paper is a program description that describes the rationale for infusing reflective practices into the learning goals for preservice early childhood training, highlighting the specific reflection skills from the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Competency Guidelines. We describe how one university early childhood training program promotes student reflection skills referencing three distinct perspectives: (1) why reflection is essential to developing knowledge and skills; (2) the role group reflection plays in sustaining deep knowledge and skill development for students and faculty; (3) how faculty promote students' awareness of the connection between personal experience and professional dispositions through reflection during practicum experiences.

Impacts of Publicly Funded Health Insurance for Adults on Children's Academic Achievement.

Empirical evidence demonstrates that publicly funded adult health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has had positive effects on low-income adults. We examine whether the ACA's Medicaid expansions influenced child development and family functioning in low-income households. We use a difference-in-differences framework exploiting cross-state policy variation and focusing on children in low-income families from a nationally representative, longitudinal sample followed from kindergarten to fifth grade.

Better Late Than Never: Effects of Late ACA Medicaid Expansions for Parents on Family Health-Related Financial Well-Being.

Public health insurance eligibility for low-income adults has improved adult economic well-being. But whether parental public health insurance eligibility has spillover effects on children's health insurance coverage and family health-related financial well-being is less understood. We use the 2016 to 2020 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) to estimate the effects of Medicaid expansions through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for parents on child health insurance coverage, parents' employment decisions due to child health, and family health-related financial well-being.

The development and initial validation of a new working time scale for full-time workers with non-standard schedules.

Background: Working time characteristics have been used to link work schedule features to health impairment; however, extant working time exposure assessments are narrow in scope. Prominent working time frameworks suggest that a broad range of schedule features should be assessed to best capture non-standard schedules. The purpose of this study was to develop a multi-dimensional scale that assesses working time exposures and test its reliability and validity for full-time workers with non-standard schedules.

Early Maternal Employment And Children's School Readiness: Changing Associations Over Time?

This study assessed whether the links between early maternal employment and children's school readiness have changed over time. Research has examined mothers' labor force participation and its associations with children's well-being. As maternal employment has become more normative, these associations may have changed, particularly among subgroups of families.

Socioeconomic Variations in the Frequency of Parent Number Talk: A Meta-Analysis.

Using data from 12 studies, we meta-analyze correlations between parent number talk during interactions with their young children (mean sample age ranging from 22 to 79 months) and two aspects of family socioeconomics, parent education, and family income. Potential variations in correlation sizes as a function of study characteristics were explored. Statistically significant positive correlations were found between the amount of number talk in parent-child interactions and both parent education and family income (i.

Precarious Work Schedules and Sleep: A Study of Unionized Full-Time Workers.

Unlabelled: Unlike which is temporary and insecure, with inadequate pay, benefits, and legal protections, can affect workers with permanent full-time jobs in sectors where employment has historically been secure, well-compensated, and even unionized. Precarious work schedules - characterized by long shifts, non-daytime hours, intensity and unsocial work hours - are increasingly prevalent. Relations between precarious work schedules and poor health are not well understood, and less is known about how to attenuate this relation.

Effects of parental public health insurance eligibility on parent and child health outcomes.

Many states expanded their Medicaid programs to low-income adults under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). These expansions increased Medicaid coverage among low-income parents and their children. Whether these improvements in coverage and healthcare use lead to better health outcomes for parents and their children remains unanswered.

Are math and behavioral skills interrelated? A longitudinal analysis in early childhood.

The interrelationships between math and behavioral skill development prior to school entry are not well understood, yet have important implications for understanding how to best prepare young children for kindergarten. This study addresses this gap by utilizing a sample of 1,750 children (53% male; 47% White, 16% Black, 16% Hispanic, 8% Asian, and 13% other or multirace) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to examine the interrelationships between behavioral (parent-reported prosocial skills and externalizing problems) and math skills (directly assessed) across the ages of 4, 5, and 6 years. Results from a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RICLPM) revealed significant between-person associations between each of these skills over time.

Ethnic Differences in Family Childcare Providers' Nutrition- and Activity-Related Attitudes and Barriers.

Objective: The aim of the study is to examine family childcare providers' (FCCPs) attitudes and perceived barriers related to nutrition, physical activity (PA), and screen time (ST) behaviors of preschool children, exploring differences by provider ethnicity.

Design: Baseline survey data from a cluster-randomized trial. .

Risks and resources for college students' mental health: ACEs, attachment, and mindfulness.

To examine associations between risks and resources in predicting college students' depressive symptoms at the beginning of one semester and change over the semester. Participants were undergraduate students taking human development courses at one of 11 universities in the U.S.

Maternal Support of Children's Math Learning in Associations Between Family Income and Math School Readiness.

This study examined maternal support of children's math learning at 36 months (n = 140) as a mediator of the association between early childhood family income and children's counting and calculation skills at 4½ and 6-7 years. Family income was associated with this measure of children's math school readiness, but the association was almost entirely indirect and mediated by observed maternal support of children's numerical skills at 36 months. Maternal support of children's spatial concept and general learning (cognitive stimulation and sensitivity) were not significant mediators of this association.

Maternal Support of Children's Early Numerical Concept Learning Predicts Preschool and First-Grade Math Achievement.

The primary goal in this study was to examine maternal support of numerical concepts at 36 months as predictors of math achievement at 4½ and 6-7 years. Observational measures of mother-child interactions (n = 140) were used to examine type of support for numerical concepts. Maternal support that involved labeling the quantities of sets of objects was predictive of later child math achievement.

Early Maternal Employment and Children's Academic and Behavioral Skills in Australia and the United Kingdom.

This study assessed the links between early maternal employment and children's later academic and behavioral skills in Australia and the United Kingdom. Using representative samples of children born in each country from 2000 to 2004 (Australia N = 5,093, U.K.

Gender, male-typicality, and social norms predicting adolescent alcohol intoxication and marijuana use.

Objective: This study examined the direct and interactive effects of gender, male-typicality, and social norms in predicting the initiation and longitudinal patterns of alcohol intoxication and marijuana use in U.S. youth.

Direct and interactive effects of parent, friend and schoolmate drinking on alcohol use trajectories.

Objective: This study considered the unique and interactive roles of social norms from parents, friends and schools in predicting developmental trajectories of adolescent drinking and intoxication.

Design And Outcome Measures: Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which followed adolescents (N = 18,921) for 13 years, we used discrete mixture modelling to identify unique developmental trajectories of drinking and of intoxication. Next, multilevel multinomial regression models examined the role of alcohol-related social norms from parents, friends and schoolmates in the prediction of youths' trajectory group membership.

Early maternal employment and children's school readiness in contemporary families.

This study assessed whether previous findings linking early maternal employment to lower cognitive and behavioral skills among children generalized to modern families. Using a representative sample of children born in the United States in 2001 (N = 10,100), ordinary least squares regression models weighted with propensity scores assessed links between maternal employment in the 2 years after childbearing and children's school readiness skills at kindergarten. There were neutral associations between maternal employment and children's school readiness, which were not differentiated by maternal time, stress, or wages.