In the spring of 2020, as a result of the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many children dropped out of daycare and early education in Finland, and parents had to balance work and childcare for months. The wellbeing of families during the lockdown has been studied to some extent, but few studies have focused on children under school age.…

In this study links between spousal and parent-child relationships among Finnish (n = 157 couples) and Dutch (n = 276 couples) dual earners with young children were examined using paired questionnaire data. Variable-oriented analyses (structural equation modeling with a multigroup procedure) supported the spillover hypothesis, as higher levels of…

Part of an ongoing longitudinal research project, a study was made to develop a method and a multilevel model for evaluating at its earliest stages the relationship between a mother and her child. The main hypothesis of the study was that the early mother-child relationship, consisting of maternal responses and a mother's images of her role in…

Results of a longitudinal study provide several insights into the idealization of motherhood, the idealization of mothers' relationships with their children in the years from 1 to 4, and the development of children of women who idealize motherhood. In the mother, idealization is associated with low self-esteem, denial of ambivalent feelings and…

In modern societies, children are becoming more and more users of a child culture constructed by adults, rather than producers of their own culture. This paper describes a project, implemented in Nordic child care centers and early childhood classes, that provides children the opportunity to narrate and illustrate their own stories, written down…