Research has shown links between emotion regulation strategies and child mental health. However, it is not well known how the characteristics of children may moderate these links. The aim of this study was to explore whether environmental sensitivity--the ability to perceive and process information about the environment--moderates links between…

International quantitative studies among children, such as the "Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children" and the "Programme for International Student Assessment" have revealed a gap between learning outcomes and children's subjective well-being across countries. The "Children's Worlds" international study showed that…

Background: There is increasing recognition of the contribution of affective factors such as motivation to the development of reading competence. Reading activity is theorised to mediate associations between motivation and achievement, but this has been tested empirically only rarely. Method: This study employed structural equation modelling to…

The present study examined how school-age children's communicative decisions are influenced by the situation, their social partner, and their own characteristics (gender, shyness levels, and history of peer relationships). Children (8-12 years old, N=246) imagined themselves in social scenarios (depicted through comics) and indicated the…

Addressing bullying victimization of students with disability is a significant challenge for schools. While social support can protect against bullying victimization in the general population, its role in mediating the relationship between disability and bullying is under-researched. This paper examined "covert bullying prevalence"…

Background: Parent-aimed guidance on the topic of processed foods may help limit highly processed foods in children's diets, but little is known about parent understanding and perceptions of these products. Aims: To determine how parent perceptions of processing align with processing classification systems used in research, and to identify…

This study evaluated stressors and coping strategies in 70 children who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) or with auditory processing disorder (APD) attending Grades 5 and 6 of a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Everyday general stressors and more hearing-specific stressors were examined in a hearing-specific modified stress and…

The goal of the current investigation was to test emotion dysregulation as a mechanism explaining the longitudinal association between peer rejection and depressive symptoms across 1 school year in middle childhood and to determine whether this process differed based on gender and grade. Youth in Grades 3 through 6 (N = 131; 71 girls) and their…

The present study evaluated whether 3 indices of friendship adjustment (mutual friendship involvement, friendship stability, friendship quality) are important, but overlooked, moderators of the impact of anxious-withdrawal on trajectories of psychological maladjustment during early adolescence. Participants included 271 young adolescents (51%…

Students become increasingly disconnected from their schools across the middle school years, but little is known about the factors contributing to changes in school connectedness. This study examined the time-invariant and time-varying roles of depressive symptoms and externalizing problems in trajectories of student-perceived school connectedness…

In this study, we sought to create and validate a brief measure to assess students' perceptions of kindness in school. Participants included 1,753 students in Grades 4 to 8 attending public schools in a large school district in southern British Columbia. The School Kindness Scale (SKS) demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure and adequate…

Homeless children usually experience high mobility. Yet, it is not clear if the degree of mobility among homeless children is associated with their academic performance. Furthermore, an emerging body of literature is beginning to examine the impact of specific living arrangements (e.g., living with families or friends) on homeless family and child…

We examined the problem-solving behaviors that 5th, 6th, and 7th graders used to negotiate a novel recreational video game. Students were characterized as frequent or infrequent players and instructed to think aloud during game play for 20 consecutive minutes. Comments were used to make inferences about the students' problem-solving behaviors…

This study investigated the prospective association between moral disengagement and bystander behaviors in bullying situations, including both defending and passive bystanding. A diverse sample of Canadian school children (N = 130; 68 boys and 62 girls; mean age = 11.36 years) participated in a three-wave longitudinal study over a 4-month period.…

This study investigates factors in the home environment and their influence on children's analytical, creative, and practical skills. A sample of 294 gifted children (195 male) was recruited from grades 4-7 in Saudi Arabia, where the family context is highly influenced by the principles of Islam. Results did not confirm the effect of birth order,…