Although longitudinal research has underscored the roles of mind-mindedness and parental sensitivity in the development of early attachment, their individual and joint contributions to attachment-focused interventions remain unexplored. This study examined whether parental mind-mindedness and sensitivity mediated the association between exposure to attachment video-feedback intervention (AVI) and attachment security among parent-child dyads involved with Child Protection Services. Using a post-intervention paired design, 67 parent-child dyads (children aged 2-3 years) were compared: AVI (n = 39) and wait-list controls not yet assigned to any intervention (n = 28). Mind-mindedness, parental sensitivity and child attachment were assessed during a 30-minute free-play session three weeks post-AVI. Mediation analyses showed that mind-mindedness and sensitivity independently mediated the intervention-attachment security link, with no sequential effect. Lower non-attuned comments and greater parental sensitivity were associated with greater security. These findings suggest explanatory mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of attachment-based interventions in childhood maltreatment contexts.

Early temperament plays an essential role in shaping children’s reactions to their environment and can therefore have important implications for socioemotional and cognitive development throughout childhood. Investigating how different temperament characteristics group together in infancy can identify how distinct temperamental profiles are represented in the general population and potentially offer valuable insights into long-term developmental outcomes. However, few studies have identified temperament profiles in infants. The objective of this study was to identify temperament profiles using the 14 dimensions described in the Rothbart’s model of infant temperament in a general population sample of 6-month-old infants. Participants were 433 French-speaking mothers of low-risk socioeconomic background who assessed their child’s temperament at 6 months of age using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised short form. Latent profile analysis revealed four distinct temperament profiles among the infants: (1) Moderate Reactivity and Regulation (37.67%); (2) High Positivity-High Regulation (28.64%); (3) High Negativity-Low Regulation (13.60%); and (4) High Positivity and Negativity (20.09%). These profiles offer a more nuanced understanding of early temperament and highlight that complex individual configurations are present at a very young age. Prevention and intervention programs targeting infants and their parents should take these temperament profiles into consideration.

While children's developmental outcomes have been thoroughly examined in relation to the mother, little is known about the associations between other familial subsystems and children's problem behaviors. This study aimed to adopt a family system approach by examining the associations between both individual and combined measures of mother-child and father-child attachment, the quality of parental alliance, and children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Attachment was assessed using the Cassidy-Marvin Preschool Attachment Classification System with both parents and their preschool-aged children (N = 137). The quality of the parental alliance was measured using the Parental Alliance Inventory, and children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist. Multivariate analyses of covariances results show the importance of assessing attachment with both parent-child dyads as only father-child organized insecurity was linked to children's externalizing behaviors, and a secure mother-child attachment did not act as a buffer for an insecure father-child attachment when it came to children's externalizing behaviors. Results also highlight the need to distinguish organized insecurity and disorganization in statistical analyses as the insecure father-child dyads exhibited significantly higher externalizing behavior scores than their disorganized counterparts. No significant associations were found between attachment measures, children's internalizing behaviors, and parental alliance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Distinct forms of gender-based victimization (e.g., sexist experiences, slut-shaming, sexual harassment, and homophobic bullying) are often studied in isolation among adolescent girls, yet some girls are likely to experience multiple forms simultaneously. Researchers have theorized that these forms of gender-based victimization can function to regulate culturally acceptable gendered expression and behavior, but more empirical work is needed to understand these linkages. We had two aims: (a) to identify profiles of gender-based victimization (i.e., sexist experiences, slut-shaming, sexual harassment, and homophobic bullying) among adolescent girls and (b) to understand how these profiles are associated with girls' relationships to gender norms (i.e., gender expression, internalized sexism, internalized sexualization, and sexual identity). We analyzed data from a larger study on adolescents' peer experiences and attitudes in Québec, Canada (n = 203 girls, Mage = 15.4 years, 30% racialized minorities). We used latent profile analysis to identify patterns of gender-based victimization experiences, and then we used latent variable multinomial regression to test the association between the profiles of victimization and girls' relationships to gender norms. The best model was a two-profile solution: High Victimization and Low Victimization. Compared to the Low Victimization group, participants in the High Victimization group were more likely to identify as sexual minorities and report higher levels of internalized sexualization. Our findings support intervention and prevention approaches that focus on the links between multiple forms of gender-based violence and that acknowledge sexualization and sexual minority status as risk factors. Ultimately, our results suggest that one function of gender-based victimization is policing gender norms.

Slut-shaming is a popular concept wherein a person (typically girls or women) experiences social sanctioning for engaging in sexual or sexualized behaviors considered in excess of traditional norms relating to female sexuality. The aim of this study was to explore how adolescent girls perceive and interpret slut-shaming, focusing on support seeking for this type of victimization. A thematic analysis was conducted on semi-structured interviews with 19 adolescent girls aged 12-17. The findings revealed three primary themes: Conceptualizations of slut-shaming, Explanations for slut-shaming, and Barriers and facilitators to help-seeking for slut-shaming. Barriers identified included the ineffectiveness of available supports, the normalization of slut-shaming, and feelings of discomfort or shame. Findings emphasize the need for school-based initiatives targeting slut-shaming.

School readiness is a key early-life factor enabling children's well-being and school adjustment across their life course. School readiness is a multidimensional concept that includes socioemotional (e.g., social skills, behaviors) and cognitive (e.g., pre-academic, language) skills. In the past decade, school readiness has been increasingly studied with a person-centered approach. This approach identifies subgroups or profiles of children with similar patterns of strengths and weaknesses in multiple indicators of school readiness. In this study, a latent profile analysis was conducted to identify profiles of school readiness among 300 French-Canadian preschoolers who are at risk of low school readiness. We also determined how they differed on their social and academic adjustment in kindergarten and Grade 1. Four profiles of school readiness were identified: Language Strength (20%), Ready for School (20%), Generalized Difficulties (40%), and Low Cognitive (21%) skills. These profiles significantly differed in their social adjustment, cognitive learning skills, and academic achievement in mathematics and in language arts. The Low Cognitive profile generally presents more difficulties than other profiles on all outcomes. This study highlights the strengths and vulnerabilities of preschoolers that should be targeted in early interventions, depending on the child's specific profile of school readiness.

INTRODUCTION:Gender and sexual minority adolescents experience greater stress and report worse sleep outcomes compared to their cisgender and/or heterosexual peers. Understanding how minority stress and resilience factors are linked to sleep health provides levers for improving sleep within these populations. METHODS:Using a cross-sectional survey of LGBTQ+ adolescents in the US conducted in 2017 (n = 11,282; Mage = 15.6 years; 65% white), we compared gender/sex and sexuality subgroups' trouble falling asleep and conducted linear regressions relating trouble falling asleep to minority stress (i.e., violent victimization, bias-based victimization, and family rejection) and resilience (i.e., familial warmth, family acceptance, gender-affirming environments, teacher support, trusted adult at school, and presence of a gender-sexuality alliance [GSA]) factors for both gender and sexual minority adolescents. RESULTS:We found small but significant differences in sleep across gender/sex categories, with gender minorities and youth assigned female at birth having worse sleep than cisgender sexual minorities and youth assigned male at birth, respectively. Further, violent LGBTQ+ victimization and gender expression-based victimization were associated with more trouble falling asleep, and familial warmth was associated with less trouble falling asleep for both groups. For cisgender sexual minorities, family rejection and gender-based victimization were also linked with worse sleep while presence of a GSA and a trusted adult at school were linked with better sleep. For gender minorities, gender-segregated restroom use was also linked with better sleep. CONCLUSIONS:Victimization prevention, increased access to school supports, and improved family connectedness may help enhance LGBTQ+ youth sleep quality and overall health.

Objective Childhood trauma is common among parents and can have intergenerational effects. Preliminary evidence suggests that young boys may be more vulnerable to maternal childhood trauma than girls. This finding needs to be replicated, and it remains to be determined whether it also applies to paternal childhood trauma. The current study aims to examine the associations between parental childhood trauma and 3 indicators of early functioning (general development, socioemotional development, and temperament) in offspring and to assess the moderating role of child sex. Method Childhood trauma was assessed during pregnancy in 3 community samples of women (N = 143; N = 195; N = 216) and postnatally in 1 community sample of fathers (N = 165). Child functioning was assessed using parental reports of child development and temperament between 6 and 38 months postnatal. Regression-based moderation analyses were conducted. Results Significant associations between parental childhood trauma and adverse child outcomes were observed in all samples. A moderating role of child sex was supported in 3 of the 4 samples, all indicating greater vulnerability to parental childhood trauma among boys. Conclusion These findings suggest that maternal and paternal childhood trauma are associated with poorer functioning in infants and toddlers, but only in boys. This has implications for personalized preventive interventions with parents exposed to childhood trauma. These results call for replication with large and diverse samples including biological measures and observational measures of child development. Plain language summary This study utilized three samples of mothers and one of fathers from Quebec, Canada to examine the associations between parental childhood trauma and early childhood functioning. In three of the four samples, young boys exhibited increased vulnerability to parental childhood trauma in comparison to girls. These findings must be replicated to consider their potential for personalized preventive interventions for male offspring of parents exposed to childhood trauma.

Group conversation, also known as circle time, is frequently used in preschool education. This study describes practices during group conversation in prekindergarten. 30 filmed group conversations in kindergarten 4 years old led by 11 full-time female teachers were analyzed. Results showed that teacher and children are seating in a circle and the management is mostly done by the teacher. The main theme is chosen by the teacher and is usually about personal experiences. In terms of feedback practices, most of them are related to the ideas expressed by children and few are about phonology, syntax, or vocabulary.

La causerie est un contexte d'apprentissage fréquemment proposé à l’éducation préscolaire. Cette étude décrit les pratiques de 11 enseignantes à l’éducation préscolaire 4 ans durant la causerie. Trente causeries ont été filmées et analysées. Les résultats ont montré que l’enseignante et les enfants s'assoyaient en cercle et la causerie était principalement gérée par l'enseignante. Le sujet est choisi par l'enseignante et portait généralement sur des expériences personnelles des enfants. Les rétroactions se rapportaient beaucoup aux idées énoncées par les enfants et peu concernaient la phonologie, la syntaxe ou le vocabulaire.

To prevent young children’s injuries, studies have considered both child (e.g., temperament, age, sex) and parent factors (e.g., parental supervision and style, attachment) associated with risk-taking behaviors. Building on risk-taking theory literature, Jonas and Kochanska (Jonas Kochanska, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 46:1573–1583, 2018) adapted the dual systems model (Steinberg, Developmental Review 28:78–106, 2008) to children and suggested that risk-taking propensity arises from an imbalance between the overactivation of the child’s socioemotional system (sensation seeking or traits of surgency) and the lower cognitive control system (lack of self-regulation or of effortful control). However, from an intergenerational transmission perspective, it is relevant to consider the role both parents’ and the children’s socioemotional and cognitive control systems have on a child’s risk-taking behaviors. The current longitudinal study is the first to examines sensation seeking and lack of self-regulation in parents in addition to the child’s surgency-effortful control imbalance to understand the child’s risk-taking behaviors. The sample comprised 177 two-parent families (89 boys) observed at two time points (child age ranges: 12–18 months and 24–30 months). Both parents provided sociodemographic information and completed self-reported questionnaires on sensation seeking and self-regulation, child’s temperament and risk-taking behaviors. Results showed that fathers’ higher sensation-seeking and mothers’ lack of self-regulation were associated with higher children’s risk-taking behaviors. After controlling for these parent factors and child sex, child surgency-effortful imbalance was strongly associated with higher children’s risk-taking behaviors. An adapted dual systems model including both parents (sensation seeking and self-regulation) and children (surgency-effortful imbalance) seems a promising avenue to a fuller understanding of children’s risk-taking behaviors.

Adopting a family system perspective, this study sets out to explore the association between family configurations of mother-child and father-child attachment to better understand children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviors in toddlerhood. A total of 182 heterosexual biparental families and their children (90 boys) were recruited from the general population. Most of the fathers and mothers were Canadian-born and the personal income and education level of the parents were high in comparison to the population of the province of Quebec at large. Attachment was assessed by direct observation using the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) in infants aged 12–18 months. Children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors were assessed in toddlers aged 24–30 months using questionnaires completed by both parents. Results showed that infants with resistant attachment to one parent and secure attachment to the other parent have more externalizing behaviors than children with a secure attachment to both parents. Moreover, children with a disorganized attachment to both parents showed more internalizing and externalizing problems than children with a disorganized attachment with one parent and secure with the other parent. These results highlight the need of adopting a systemic family perspective to better understand the link between attachment and children’s behavior problems.

Boys are known to take more risks than girls, which may lead them to suffer more injuries than girls when exploring their physical surroundings. The aims of this study are to verify whether the father-child activation relationship has a greater effect than the mother-child activation relationship on preschoolers' risk-taking, and whether both of these relationships are a greater predictor of risk-taking in boys than in girls. Activation relationships were assessed using a standardized observation procedure at 15 and 45 months old with each parent. Both parents completed a questionnaire on their child's injury-risk behaviors during the preschool years. Both predictions were supported. Moreover, this longitudinal study found that preschoolers' risk-taking was predicted by mother-child overactivation in both infancy and preschool, whereas preschoolers' risk-taking was predicted by father-child overactivation in preschool alone, after controlling for parent-child overactivation relationships during infancy.

Developmental researchers have highlighted the role played by parental mentalizing in early attachment. However, the manner in which verbal (i.e., mind-mindedness) and nonverbal (i.e., parental embodied mentalizing) parental mentalizing relate with one another on an individual level, and subsequently, how they contribute to parent-infant attachment, remains largely unexplored. Using a person-centered approach, this study aimed to identify verbal and nonverbal mentalizing profiles and their associations with infant attachment, as well as with parental factors and interactional context (e.g., exploration, transitions). Based on longitudinal studies from three countries (Canada, United Kingdom, and Israel), this study included 412 mother-infant dyads. Mind-mindedness and parental embodied mentalizing were assessed through two distinct observational procedures during free-play interactions at 6-8 months. Infant attachment was evaluated using the Strange Situation Procedure at 15-16 months. Latent profile analyses identified four parental mentalizing profiles based on verbal and nonverbal indicators: very low consistent, low consistent, high consistent, and inconsistent. The three consistent profiles reflected low or high levels across both verbal and nonverbal indicators, whereas the inconsistent profile was marked by inconsistency: these parents produced more non-attuned comments than other profiles but still demonstrated good embodied mentalizing and made appropriate mind-related comments. Results showed that the high consistent profile was associated with greater infant attachment security than the very low consistent, low consistent, or inconsistent profiles. This study suggests distinct parental mentalizing profiles based on verbal and nonverbal indicators, and their differential relations with later child attachment.

This study examined how adverse parenting practices mediate the relationship between child temperament and later externalizing problems, and whether the teacher-child relationship moderates these associations. Data on child temperament, parenting practices, child externalizing problems (parent-reported), and teacher-child relationship (teacher-reported) were collected over three years (mean ages 8.40 to 11.29) among 434 children (44.7% girls) with early-onset externalizing problems. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that parental hostility mediated associations between temperamental factors (high negative affectivity, low effortful control) and later externalizing problems, controlling for demographics and baseline externalizing problems. These indirect associations were specific to children with low to average levels of closeness with teachers. Inconsistent parental discipline also mediated the association between low effortful control and greater externalizing problems but only at high levels of teacher-child closeness. Results suggest that teacher-child closeness could alter the risks associated with specific parenting practices in the development of externalizing problems during childhood.

Research Findings: This longitudinal study examined the mediating role of home literacy environment (HLE) in the relationship between family sociodemographic risk factors and preschoolers' language skills during their transition to kindergarten. A sample of 142 children showing vulnerability regarding school readiness were assessed three times. Eight months before kindergarten, family sociodemographic information was collected, and a cumulative family sociodemographic risk score was calculated. Children's language skills (i.e. receptive and expressive vocabulary and sentence recall) were also collected at this timepoint. Four months later, three components of HLE (i.e. frequency of parents' involvement in literacy activities, quality of parents' involvement in literacy activities, and availability of learning materials at home) were measured. At the end of kindergarten, 1 year later, children's language skills were reassessed. One main indirect association was found: cumulative risk was related to expressive vocabulary through the availability of learning materials. Practice or Policy: These findings highlight that interventions with parents of preschoolers showing vulnerability regarding school readiness should focus on supporting parental practices and helping parents gain access to learning materials through school, social services, and other community resources.

This study aimed to examine the associations between child temperament and trajectories of the three dimensions of the student-teacher relationship (Closeness, Conflict, and Dependency) during elementary school. Latent class growth analyses conducted among 744 French-Canadian students recruited between 2008 and 2010 (46.8% girls; Mage = 8.39; 90.9% White; 49.7% with externalizing behavior problems) revealed four Closeness trajectories and three Conflict trajectories, but no significant variability between children in mean levels of change in Dependency. Surgency-Extraversion and Effortful control were associated with specific trajectories of Closeness and Conflict. Effortful control was also associated with cross-sectional assessments of Dependency. These results suggest that temperament is a useful construct in understanding developmental patterns of the student-teacher relationship across the elementary school years.

Young people with conduct problems (i.e., chronic behavioural issues characterized by rule violation, aggressive behaviour, classroom disruption) are particularly vulnerable to experiencing negative mental health and academic outcomes and are among the most frequent users of school-based mental health services. The behaviours associated with conduct problems can negatively impact youths’ relationships with their parents, peers, and school personnel. The present qualitative study examined the service use experiences of individuals with histories of conduct problems, focusing on how service use was linked with how youth saw their relationships with others. A thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews carried out between 2019 and 2020 with 41 young adults ages 17–21 with histories of school-based specialized service use for conduct problems was conducted to understand how participants described the services they received in school, and how they saw this service use as shaping their relationships with others. We identified four themes of stigma and empathy in terms of how youth related service use to their interpersonal relationships. The findings underline the importance of raising awareness about the impacts of stigma for conduct problems. The implications for practice include the need for further research on empathy by service providers who work with youth with conduct problems.

Children with a parent who suffers from depression are more likely to develop internalizing problems themselves. Moreover, poverty is an additional risk factor for child internalizing problems. According to models of intergenerational transmission of depression, various environmental mechanisms may account for this transmission. However, very few studies have included multiple mediators, as well as both parents in low-income samples. In this study of low-income families, we measured parental depressive symptoms, child internalizing problems, and examined three potential mediators: parent-child interaction quality, spouse's depressive symptoms, and coparenting conflict. Results indicated that the transmission of paternal depressive symptoms to child internalizing problems was entirely accounted for by these three mediators. The transmission of maternal depressive symptoms to child internalizing problems was mediated partially by coparenting conflict, but this link remained largely direct. These results underscore the need to consider both parents and coparenting conflict in clinical interventions targeting internalizing problems among preschoolers.