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Objective Approximately 15–20 percent of young children can be classified as having a behaviorally inhibited (BI) temperament. Stable BI predicts the development of later anxiety disorders (particularly social anxiety), but not all inhibited children develop anxiety. Parenting characterized by inappropriate warmth/sensitivity and/or intrusive control predicts the stability of BI and moderates risk for anxiety among high-BI children. For these reasons, we developed and examined the preliminary efficacy of the Turtle Program: a multi-modal early intervention for inhibited preschool-aged children. Method Forty inhibited children between the ages of 42–60 months and their parent(s) were randomized to either the Turtle Program (n = 18) or a waitlist control condition (WLC; n = 22). Participants randomized to the Turtle Program condition received 8 weeks of concurrent parent and child group treatment. Participants were assessed at baseline and post-treatment with multi-source assessments, including parent and teacher report measures of child anxiety, diagnostic interviews, and observations of parenting behavior. Results The Turtle Program resulted in significant beneficial effects relative to the WLC condition on maternal-reported anxiety symptoms of medium to large magnitude; large effects on parent-reported BI; medium to large effects on teacher-rated school anxiety symptoms; and medium effects on observed maternal positive affect/sensitivity. Conclusions This study provides encouraging preliminary support for the Turtle Program for young behaviorally inhibited children. Importantly, the effects of the Turtle Program generalized to the school setting. Future studies should examine whether this early intervention program improves long-term developmental outcomes for these at-risk children.

The significance of peers in the lives of children and adolescents is described. The chapter begins with a discussion of theory relevant to the study of peer interactions, relationships, and groups. Next examined are the prevalence, stability, and characteristics of children’s friendships, the psychosocial correlates and consequences of having a mutual friendship and of having friendships with others who are experiencing adjustment difficulties. Thereafter, sections are focused on the assessment of peer acceptance, rejection, and popularity, and the behavioral, social-cognitive, affective, and self-system concomitants and longitudinal outcomes of peer acceptance and rejection. Subsequently, the extant literature pertaining to child and adolescent peer groups, cliques, and crowds is described. In the next section, the growing literature on culture and peer relationships is discussed. Then, in the summary, we present a transactional, developmental framework for understanding individual differences in children’s peer relationships experiences.

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Parents and adolescents often provide discrepant reports of adolescent and family behavior. Recent work indicates that scores from indirect measures of discrepancies between parent and adolescent reports, namely, statistical interactions between reports, longitudinally predict adolescent psychopathology. However, no previous work supports the criterion validity of interpreting scores from these interactions as indirect measures of informant discrepancies. In a community sample of 50 parents and adolescents ages 14-17 years (M = 15.4 years, 20 males and 30 females), we examined indirect measures of parent-adolescent reporting discrepancies, using parent and adolescent reports of parents' awareness of adolescents' whereabouts and activities (i.e., parental monitoring). We examined these reporting discrepancies in relation to a structured interview that directly assesses "discrepant beliefs" or perceived discrepancies between parent and adolescent views of daily life topics (e.g., doing chores and homework). Greater parent- and adolescent-reported parental monitoring related to lower perceived discrepant beliefs. Importantly, the interaction between parental monitoring reports provided additional information. Specifically, when adolescents provided relatively high parental monitoring reports, we observed greater parents' parental monitoring reports relating to lower perceived discrepant beliefs, but no such relation when adolescents provided relatively low parental monitoring reports. Overall, findings suggest that indirect assessments of parent-adolescent discrepancies in reports of parental monitoring relate to direct assessments of how parents and adolescents perceive everyday life topics differently. These findings have important implications for understanding the longitudinal links between informant discrepancies and adolescent psychopathology, as well as developing multimethod assessments of informant discrepancies in psychological assessments.