Abstract Young children’s effortful control predicts an extensive variety of developmental outcomes. Therefore, it is important to investigate possible parenting factors that influence the...Show moreAbstract Young children’s effortful control predicts an extensive variety of developmental outcomes. Therefore, it is important to investigate possible parenting factors that influence the development of children’s ability to control their behavior. The effect of parental sensitivity on children’s effortful control was studied concurrently and longitudinally. Moreover, the study investigated other crucial parental factors namely parental stress and parental psychopathology as possible moderators. This study is a part of the longitudinal Leiden Consortium on Individual Development (L-CID), of which wave one and wave three were selected. Mean age of children of wave one was (M = 3.78, N = 238 families) and wave three was (M = 5.81, N = 200 families). Children’s effortful control was measured using a shortened version of the Children Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ). Parental sensitivity was measured via observations of parent-child interaction in the Etch-A-Sketch task. The regression analysis showed that parental sensitivity is an essential predictor to children's effortful control concurrently and longitudinally. The moderation analysis did not show an evidence for a moderation effect of neither parental stress nor parental psychopathology. The study contributed to the existing literature by adding a moderation approach of analyzing factors contributing to the development of children’s effortful control. The results highlighted the importance of investing in promoting parental sensitivity in programs designed to promote healthier parent-child relationships in order to increase children’s effortful control.Show less
Self-regulation is the ability to regulate emotions and behaviour. This is an important skill in life and necessary to achieve your goals. When a child attends school, a high level of self...Show moreSelf-regulation is the ability to regulate emotions and behaviour. This is an important skill in life and necessary to achieve your goals. When a child attends school, a high level of self-regulation is necessary. Self-regulation is affected by many different factors, such as school context. Some of these factors are different in twins compared to singletons, since twins are more often compared to each other. It is still unclear how being in the same classroom or not effects the development of self-regulation in twins. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the effect of being in the same classroom on selfregulation in twins. There were 90 participants between the age of 3 and 4, followed for six years at three measurement timepoints. Self-regulation was measured by Dutch versions of caregiver questionnaires, the Children’s Behaviour Questionnaire and the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire. The long-term effect of being in the same classroom or not on the development of selfregulation and the effect of zygosity were also examined. The results showed a significant increase of self-regulation in twins from T1 to T2, but this was not affected by whether twins were in the same classroom or not. There was neither a significant long-term effect on being in the same classroom or not on self-regulation in twins nor an effect of zygosity. There seemed to be no difference in the development of self-regulation when twins were separated in school and when they were not, but for a broader understanding further research is recommended.Show less
Previous research suggests that a child’s temperament has a positive relation to its prosocial behavior. It also suggests temperament has a positive relation to parental stress, which in turn has a...Show morePrevious research suggests that a child’s temperament has a positive relation to its prosocial behavior. It also suggests temperament has a positive relation to parental stress, which in turn has a negative relation to prosocial behavior. In the current study we looked at a possible mediation of parental stress on the relation between a child’s temperament and prosocial behavior. We used a sample of n=114 children aged 8-10 and their parents. We used the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ) and the Parenting Daily Hassles (PDH) questionnaire to measure child temperament and parental stress respectively and we used a donating task to measure child prosocial behavior. We ran two different mediation models for two temperament subtypes: Negative Affectivity and Perceptual Sensitivity. We found a significant positive relation between the Negative Affectivity subtype of temperament and parental stress. Contrary to our expectations we found no significant relation between either of the two temperament subtypes and prosocial behavior, between the Perceptual Sensitivity subtype and parental stress, and between parental stress and prosocial behavior. Even though our expectations were not met, this study provides new insights in the relations between these three aspects of child development. The development of prosocial behavior is more resilient than we previously thought. Even when a child has a difficult temperament or a parent who experiences a high amount of stress, this does not necessarily mean a child can not learn to be prosocial.Show less
Humans have a psychological need to belong and in middle childhood peers become an important source to fulfill this need through peer acceptance. Peer acceptance has positive effects like...Show moreHumans have a psychological need to belong and in middle childhood peers become an important source to fulfill this need through peer acceptance. Peer acceptance has positive effects like increasing your well-being and social-status and decreases your chance of being bullied. Prosocial behavior increases peer acceptance because it is meant to benefit other people through sharing, comforting, and helping. Due to positive outcomes, factors influencing prosocial behavior are explored. Previous studies have looked at factors in early childhood and found that sensitive parents and better inhibitory control increases prosocial behavior. How temperament, specifically inhibitory control, and parental sensitivity can increase prosocial behavior in middle childhood is not fully understood. This study aims to investigate whether children's temperament mediates the relation between parental sensitivity and children’s prosocial behavior. Temperament determines the way children respond to their parents' sensitivity. Children with less inhibitory control respond more to parental sensitivity and improve their inhibition, which increases their prosocial behavior because children are better able to inhibit impulses that benefit themselves and behave more beneficial for others. The participants are part of a larger twin study (n=512) of the Leiden Consortium on Individual Development (L-CID). In the present study, a selected sample (n=170) was used. We did not reveal that children’s temperament, measured as inhibitory control, was a mediator in the relation between parental sensitivity and prosocial behavior. However, a positive relationship between children's temperament and prosocial behavior was observed. This study looked at parental sensitivity in a new way namely through observation but did not look at differences for maternal and paternal sensitivity. Perhaps future research could look at other factors than parents like peers and tv shows in middle childhood.Show less
Showing prosocial behaviour has lots of advantages for children, for example they are better at maintaining friendships, better social cognitive skills and they outdo in academics. The main goal of...Show moreShowing prosocial behaviour has lots of advantages for children, for example they are better at maintaining friendships, better social cognitive skills and they outdo in academics. The main goal of this thesis was to examine the factors that could stimulate the development of prosocial behaviour in early adolescents. We expected that musical training and parental sensitivity had a positive effect on prosocial behaviour. Furthermore, we expected a positive relation of parental sensitivity on musical training. We used two behavioural tasks and a questionnaire to determine the constructs. The research sample was recruited from the longitudinal twin study of the Leiden Consortium on Individual Development. Multiple regression analyses were done. Our results indicated that musical training and parental sensitivity did not influence the prosocial behaviour in early adolescents. Furthermore, sensitive parenting had no effect on whether a child will attend musical training. This is the first study to examine the gap in knowledge about the relation between parental sensitivity and musical training. With our recommendations, further research will be able to study this subject more thoroughly.Show less
Multiple studies suggest that worse sleep quality would lead to a worse mood the next day. It is important to address this issue, because mood is an essential factor regarding someone’s quality of...Show moreMultiple studies suggest that worse sleep quality would lead to a worse mood the next day. It is important to address this issue, because mood is an essential factor regarding someone’s quality of life. However, it is not clear how this works for children. Another issue that comes forward is that it is unclear how gender moderates this relationship. We investigated the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between sleep quality and mood in 82 normally developing children (Age M= 7.44; SD=.61; age range 7-9; 43% boys). Sleep quality was defined as sleep efficiency and was measured with actigraph watches the children wore at night. Parents filled in diary questions about their children’s affective mood states: valence, energetic arousal and calmness. We looked at the influence of one night of sleep on mood the next day. We did not find a relationship between sleep efficiency and mood. This shows that mood in normal developing children is not affected by sleep efficiency. We also researched if gender moderates the relationship between sleep efficiency and mood. The effect of sleep efficiency and mood was the same for boys and girls. This finding strengthens the idea that gender differences only become apparent after the onset of puberty. Therefore it does not matter if you are a boy or a girl: one bad night of sleep will not affect your mood the next day.Show less
