Nature and success: Outdoor play is linked to school readiness.

Background: and Purpose: Outdoor play is widely acknowledged for its benefits to physical health and psychological well-being, yet its relationship with school readiness remains understudied in preschoolers. To address this gap in the literature, this study investigated how outdoor play relates to cognitive and psychosocial development among a nationally representative sample of preschoolers.

Materials And Method: Data on the duration of outdoor play (on weekdays and weekends) and specific cognitive and psychosocial outcome variables (i.

Dynamic fluctuations in maternal cardiac vagal tone moderate moment-to-moment associations between children's negative behavior and maternal emotional support.

Our primary objective was to examine the extent to which moment-to-moment associations between preschool-aged children's behavior and maternal emotional support differed for mothers showing different levels of parasympathetic engagement. We used behavioral observations of maternal and child behavior and maternal changes in cardiac vagal tone assessed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia in 15-s intervals during a 5-min challenging puzzle task ( = 121 dyads; 65 girls, = 4.42 years).

Mothers' dispositional distress reactivity as a predictor of maternal support following momentary fluctuations in children's aversive behavior.

Given that maternal support promotes healthy social and emotional development in early childhood, it is important to understand the predictors of such support, especially during emotional challenges. In this study, mothers' dispositional distress reactivity (i.e.

Fostering parents' emotion regulation through a sibling-focused experimental intervention.

In this study, we assessed whether an intervention designed to improve children's sibling relationships, the More Fun with Sisters and Brothers program (MFWSB), may also help parents manage their emotions more effectively. Families with at least 2 children between the ages of 4 and 8 years were randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 50) or wait-list control (n = 34) group. Parents completed pre- and posttest questionnaires on sibling warmth and agonism, their emotion regulation during sibling conflict, and their global emotion regulation styles.

What we learn from our sisters and brothers: for better or for worse.

Siblings have considerable influence on one another's development throughout childhood, yet most human development research has neglected sibling socialization. Through this volume, we aim to enhance our understanding of how siblings play formative roles in one another's social and emotional development. We examine the mechanisms by which children are influenced by their brothers and sisters, clarify the ways in which these mechanisms of socialization are similar to and different from children's socialization experiences with parents, and consider the conditions under which sibling socialization results in positive versus negative consequences for individual development.

Meeting the long-term needs of families who adopt children out of foster care: a three-year follow-up study.

The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which agency and nonagency supportive resources contributed to the stability and well-being of 34 newly adoptive families over 3 years. Results revealed significant pre- to post-adoption declines in families' contact and satisfaction with formal and informal helping resources. Greater pre-adoption contact with formal adoption agency staff predicted adoption stability and lower levels of family conflict at the 3-year assessment.

Sibling relationship quality from birth to adolescence: the enduring contributions of friends.

The purpose of the present study was to examine continuity in sibling relationships across childhood and to evaluate the degree to which children's experiences with their friends and mothers prior to their sibling's birth predict the quality of the relationship they establish with their siblings in adolescence. Twenty-eight firstborn children, who were 48 months old at the time of their sibling's birth, were observed interacting with their siblings and friends at multiple time points. The level of positive social behaviors demonstrated in their early relationships with friends continued to predict sibling relationship quality in adolescence.

Sibling relationship contributions to individual and family well-being: introduction to the special issue.

This special issue presents new findings that illustrate the ways in which sibling relationships serve as important contexts for individual development and family functioning. This collection of articles, which emphasizes effects on both normative and at-risk development, is intended to stimulate further research on the multifaceted and often contradictory contributions siblings extend to one another across the life course.

Diversification of stem cell molecular repertoire by alternative splicing.

Complete information regarding transcriptional and posttranscriptional gene regulation in stem cells is necessary to understand the regulation of self-renewal and differentiation. Alternative splicing is a prevalent mode of posttranscriptional regulation, and occurs in approximately one half of all mammalian genes. The frequency and functional impact of alternative splicing in stem cells are yet to be determined.

How the differential treatment of siblings is linked with parent-child relationship quality.

Little is currently known about the significance of parents' unequal treatment of siblings and their relationships with their children; for example, are high levels of differential treatment consistently indicative of poorer parent-child relationships? Associations among differential parenting practices, perceptions of the fairness of these practices, and parent-child relationship quality were assessed from the perspectives of adolescent siblings and their parents in 74 maritally intact families. Multilevel random coefficient modeling revealed that the magnitude of differential treatment was associated with more negative parent-child relationships only when adolescents perceived differential treatment to be unfair. Differential treatment judged to be fair is not linked with negative parent-child relationships.

Children's perceptions of the fairness of parental preferential treatment and their socioemotional well-being.

Being the recipient of favored parental treatment has been identified as a correlate of enhanced socioemotional well-being. However, knowledge of children's perceptions of the legitimacy of preferential treatment may provide a more complete understanding of associations between preferential treatment and children's socioemotional well-being. The current study investigated whether children's well-being varies in accordance with their views about the fairness of preferential parental treatment.