Individual differences in effects of child care quality: The role of child affective self-regulation and gender

Teachers’ Emotional and Behavioral Support and Preschoolers’ Self-Regulation: Relations With Social and Emotional Skills During Play

“…This finding is consistent with studies finding that children low on selfregulation are more strongly influenced by socialization influences in both the home (e.g., Karreman et al, 2009;Rubin et al, 2003) and ECE environment (Broekhuizen et al, 2015;Fabes et al, 1999). However, contrary to our expectations based on this literature, we did not find that children low on behavioral self-regulation were more vulnerable to relatively low-quality ECE or in general more susceptible to both relatively low-and high-quality ECE.…”

“…This study with 2-year-olds found that children with lower affective self-regulation skills, assessed through delay-of-gratification tasks, were not only more vulnerable but in general more susceptible to both low-and high-quality ECE; children showed both less social competence in lower quality child care and more social competence in higher quality child care (Broekhuizen et al, 2015). These findings are consistent with studies on parenting that have shown that children low on emotional and/or behavioral self-regulation were more vulnerable to less adequate parenting behaviors.…”

“…Although child selfregulation has been acknowledged as an important individual characteristic according to which socialization effects may vary (e.g., Rothbart & Bates, 2006), with some emerging supporting empirical evidence (Broekhuizen et al, 2015;Fabes et al, 1999;Karreman et al, 2009), this is to our knowledge the first study investigating interactions between ECE quality and children's observed behavioral self-regulation in a naturalistic play situation. In this way, we captured not only children's level of behavioral self-regulation but also their ability to implement these skills in a real-life situation with known adults and peers.…”

“…Except for the study by Broekhuizen et al (2015), most previous research on environment-by-selfregulation interactions has focused on children's negative social and emotional behaviors, such as children's (externalizing) problem behaviors (e.g., Karreman et al, 2009;Rubin et al, 2003). In terms of children's social-emotional development, however, the purpose of ECE is not to prevent problem behaviors but to stimulate children's positive social and emotional skills (e.g., Barnett, 2011).…”

“…However, some studies have found that these effects of high-quality ECE are stronger for children with certain temperamental dispositions (e.g., Broekhuizen, van Aken, Dubas, Mulder, & Leseman, 2015;Phillips, Fox, & Gunnar, 2011;Pluess & Belsky, 2009). The current study aims to further illuminate this relationship by investigating whether the relation between emotionally and behaviorally supportive teacher-child interactions and social and emotional skills, more specifically children's level of social integration and positive mood, depends on a specific indicator of child temperament: behavioral self-regulation.…”