Relationship of anger, stress, and coping with school connectedness in fourth-grade children.

Background: High trait anger and stress, ineffective patterns of anger expression, and coping are risk factors for the development of disease and negative social behaviors in children and adults. School connectedness may be protective against negative consequences in adolescents, but less is known about this in school-aged children. The purposes of this study were to characterize relationships between trait anger, stress, patterns of anger expression, resources for coping, and school connectedness and to determine if race and gender moderate these relationships in elementary school-aged children.

Accessing and recruiting children for research in schools.

Gaining access to the schools and recruiting children as research participants are challenging tasks. To facilitate gaining access to the schools, multiple strategies are necessary, including understanding specific characteristics of the schools, using the proper lines of authority and communication, identifying the gatekeepers, and persuading the schools of the significance and mutual benefits from the study. Once access is gained, strategies for successful recruitment of children include use of developmentally appropriate motivators and incentives; multilevel communications with administrators, principals, teachers, staff, parents/guardians, and children; and provision of privacy and confidentiality during data collection and sharing of the findings.

The relationships among anxiety, anger, and blood pressure in children.

Relationships between anger and anxiety have been examined in adults but less frequently in children. This investigation explored relationships among trait anxiety, trait anger, anger expression patterns, and blood pressure in children. The participants were 264 third- through sixth-grade children from five elementary schools who completed Jacob's Pediatric Anger and Anxiety Scale and Jacob's Pediatric Anger Expression Scale and had their blood pressure measured.