A strength-based approach to childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) research highlights children's positive attributes that can support their areas of difficulty. However, research on perceptions of a child's positive attributes is understudied. Specifically, there is little research that examines strength-based perceptions of…

Despite the proliferation of play-based and arts-informed research, an under-explored area is using both with young immigrant children to hear from them about their distinctive experiences and complexities. This paper draws on an arts-informed and play-based case study with two young immigrant children in Canada to highlight specific data…

The goals of this study were to investigate (a) the dyadic relations of mothers' and children's perceptions of children's anxiety symptoms across development, (b) whether maternal perceptions of children's anxiety serve as a mediator of the association between maternal anxiety and child anxiety, and (c) whether sensitive/structured parenting…

During the course of a program evaluation for Footprints Dance Project Society of Alberta, we uncovered a discrepancy between children and parents regarding both motivation for program participation and expected outcomes. At Footprints Dance Project, we work with a diverse group of children, primarily from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Despite…

Children have a robust social preference for people similar to them, like those who share their language, accent, and race. In the present research, we show that this preference can diminish when children consider who they want to learn about. Across three experiments, 4- to 6-year-olds (total N = 160; 74 female, 86 male, from the Waterloo region…

Curiosity and creativity are crucial for children's learning and engagement within their worlds. However, research on creative teaching that also addresses children's curiosity is quite limited. In this case study, we adopted visual methods in combination with video-stimulated recall dialogue (VSRD) to explore children's experiences in a Forest…

Children's hypothetical reasoning about a complex and dynamic causal system was investigated. Predominantly White, middle-class 5- to 7-year-old children from the Greater Toronto Area learned about novel food chains and were asked to consider the effects of removing one species on the others. In Study 1 (N = 72; 36 females, 36 males; 2018),…

Children's ability to save emerges during the preschool years, but little is known about the different forms saving takes (and whether these relate) and the mechanisms driving its development. Because research with adults suggests that different aspects of future orientation increase adults' propensity to save, we explored whether, in a sample of…

In the current research we examined non-Black children's associations with targets who differed by both race and gender, with a focus on the role of categorization in informing children's biases. Children aged 5 to 12 years (N = 206; 109 boys, 97 girls; 55% White; 68% of household incomes > $75,000/year), recruited from a science museum in a…

Longstanding impressions of children as innocent to human frailty, alongside the emphasis on efficiency and management in schools, play undeniable roles in the way teachers engage with children experiencing death and illness. This paper draws from a larger study of 116 written childhood memories from prospective teachers and practitioners enrolled…

This exploratory study assessed links among children's moral concern and their ideas about the rights and protection of companion, farm, wild animals and ecosystems. Sixty-one children responded to three interview questions that were coded as either anthropocentric or biocentric in orientation. Results revealed unique links among children's moral…

This study examined factors that influence and are influenced by the co-construction of pedagogical documentation by educators and children in early learning settings. Throughout a 6-month period, seven early childhood educators were asked to co-construct documentation with children and with a child audience in mind. Using interviews,…

Autonomy -- acting volitionally with a sense of choice -- is a crucial right for children. Given parents' pivotal position in their child's autonomy development, we examined how parental autonomy support and children's need for autonomy were negotiated and manifested in the context of children's independent mobility -- children's ability to play,…

This study explored children's perceptions of a canine-assisted social-emotional learning program developed within the framework of a canine therapy program at a mid-sized Canadian university. Data collection made use of interviews, field notes, and observations. Children (N = 8, 5-11 years) from an after-school program participated in a six-week…

Children with LGBTQ + parents often have to navigate a complex and shifting set of circumstances related to heteronormativity, transphobia, and anxieties about the erosion of the "natural" family. The children of these families become pedagogs, teaching others about the dynamics of gender and sexuality in their kinship structures, and…