Empirical and theoretical literature on cooperative problem solving in preschool children suggests that integrating features of play into structured, experimental settings should increase the benefits of joint peer interactions and task performance. Four- and five-year-old peer dyads completed a playful, flexible, and child-driven building task or…

This study investigated parenting practices among families of preschoolers in a middle-income community, as well as the contributions of these practices to children's literacy and learning-related social skills. A total of 229 families of preschoolers were recruited. Parents completed a survey describing their parenting practices, while children's…

To better understand peer exclusion in young children, 42 four- to six-year-olds were observed in an outdoor setting, and their verbalizations were recorded using wireless microphones. The frequency of peer exclusion and social aggression, the various techniques children used to exclude their peers (unmitigated, mitigated, ignoring, and planning…

We investigated the degree to which parent positive personality characteristics in terms of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability predict similar adolescent personality traits over time, as well as the role played by positive parenting in this process. Mothers and fathers of 451 White adolescents (52% female, mean age = 13.59…

Informed by research on interpersonal perception, peer relationships, and classroom climate, this study examines predictors of children's agreement with classmates on their classroom social networks. Social network data, peer nominations of positive behavior, and classroom observations were collected from 418 second-grade to fourth-grade children…

Fifty-nine 6- to 9-year-old children evaluated three discipline strategies (reasoning, verbal power assertion, acknowledgment of feelings), and mothers were asked to predict their children's evaluations. Maternal knowledge scores were derived. Mothers were less accurate at predicting their children's perceptions of discipline when the misdeed in…

This study assesses the relationships between children's shy and antisocial/aggressive behaviors and maternal beliefs, and concomitant parenting behaviors. Structural equation models examined 199 mothers' perceptions of aggression and shyness in their preschool-age children (average age = 59.63 months); maternal beliefs (i.e., locus of control,…

Components of the home environment are associated with children's academic functioning. The accumulation of risks in the home are expected to prove more detrimental to achievement than any one risk alone, but the processes accounting for this relation are unclear. Using an index of cumulative home risk (CHR) inclusive of protective factors, as…

This study examined attention and memory processes assumed by the social information-processing model to be biased in aggressive children. We also explored whether similar biases were associated with overt and relational aggression. A total of 96 fourth through sixth graders saw videos of overtly and relationally aggressive child actors and…

The purposes of the present study were to examine the growth trajectories of children's social skills from kindergarten through sixth grade, and to investigate the roles of early behavior problems and teacher-child relationships in children's social skill development, using data from phases I, II, and III of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and…

This study reports two separate cross-sectional investigations that focus on bully/victim problems among Hong Kong school children. Study 1 included 1361 children (670 boys, 691 girls; mean age = 12.6 years) and Study 2 included 288 children (153 boys, 135 girls; mean age = 9.6 years). Children's social and academic functioning was assessed with…

Close mutual friendships may help protect socially anxious early adolescents against concurrent psychosocial risks. This study investigated whether close mutual friendships moderated associations among social anxiety and several indices of psychosocial maladjustment (loneliness, peer victimization, and low social self-efficacy) in early…

This study examined the association between the adolescents' conflict resolution style "exiting statements" (i.e., the expression of the adolescent' desire to minimize or end the contact with his or her parents) in parent-adolescent conflicts with self-rated adolescent GAD symptoms and delinquency symptoms of 1313 adolescents. A multi-group,…

This study examined the bidirectional relationship between parenting and boys' externalizing behaviors in a four-wave longitudinal study of toddlers. Participants were 104 intact two-parent families with toddler sons. When their sons were 17, 23, 29, and 35 months of age, mothers and fathers reported on a broad range of parenting dimensions…

The relationships among maternal perceptions of racial discrimination, mother-teacher relationship quality, and school involvement were examined in this sample of 73 African American mothers of kindergarteners and first graders. Mothers reported time spent in school-related activities at home, their attitudes about the importance of school…