Babysign classes are increasingly popular across the UK. Benefits are said to include increasing child vocabulary, reducing frustration, and improving parent-child relations. A further relationship between the use of babysign and maternal mind-mindedness (MM) has been suggested. It was hypothesized here that parents choosing babysign classes would…

The idea that parenting matters for early child development is now firmly recognised by policymakers. It is well established that parents' investments influence young children's development, and their chances in life. Parenting is one of the most important drivers of social inequalities in cognitive development before school. We also know that…

This article examines how a sample of first-time mothers in the UK constitute childhood in general, and their own children in particular, in and through their talk about the mundane practices of childcare. The data analysed are drawn from a longitudinal qualitative interview study that followed a sample of mothers from late pregnancy until their…

Chaotic home systems have been linked with children's adverse psychological and academic outcomes. But, as they represent a departure from the suburban ideal of space, order, and family cohesiveness and stability, they should also be linked with low support for survival values. Using longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)…