As women increasingly entered the labor force throughout the late 20th century, the challenges of balancing work and family came to the forefront. We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children--through duration expansions to the kindergarten day--to better understand mothers' and families' constraints.…

Previous research and theory indicate an importance of the quality of the early caregiving environment in the development of self-regulation. However, it is unclear how attachment security and maternal sensitivity, two related but distinct aspects of the early caregiving environment, may differentially predict self-regulation at school start and…

We study the effect of paternity leave on early child development. We collect sur-vey data on 5,000 children under age six in Spain and exploit several extensions of paternity leave that took place between 2017 and 2021. We follow a differences-in-discontinuities research design, based on the date of birth of each child and using cohorts born in…

There is great opportunity in pediatric primary care to lay the foundation for lifelong health and well-being during the critical period from infancy to early childhood. However, many of these opportunities are missed, particularly for the most vulnerable children. The challenges to equitable, universal developmental and behavioral screening in…

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges to students across the United States, particularly those who are parents enrolled in community colleges. California's community college system serves a diverse student population, including a significant number of non-traditional, working adults who are also parents. These students have faced…

Separation anxiety symptoms are frequent among preschool-aged children, but it is also a possible gateway for diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder. Early maternal employment after childbirth can increase the risk for the development of separation anxiety symptoms. From an economic perspective, however, securing employment is one effective…

We examined the pathway from grandparental childcare support at age 3 to child social and emotional outcomes at age 7 through maternal mental health and mother-child relationship at age 3 in a sample of n = 1495 biological mothers and their children from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study. Structural equation modelling showed that time spent in the…

The NOURISH:ECE project explored the role of maternal and child health nurses (MCHNs) in early childhood education and care (ECEC) through the design and pilot of professional learning (PL) regarding responsive feeding practices. Eight focus groups were conducted in Queensland (MCHNs, n = 20; educators, n = 29) to explore attitudes regarding…

Media use and screen time show both positive and negative effects on child development. Parents' behaviors, perceptions, and regulation of parent and child screen-based device (SBD) use may be critical understudied factors in explaining these mixed effects. We developed the Parent Screen-Based Device Use Survey (PSUS) to assess parental use of…

The role of early child care experiences on the development of the mother--child attachment relationship has been studied extensively. However, no prospective studies of early child care have addressed how these experiences might be reflected in the content of attachment representations during adolescence and beyond. The goal of this study was to…

There are contrasting results of the association between center-based care attendance and child development, mainly related to how the time of entry and permanence in the program relates to developmental outcomes. Using latent class analysis in a nationally representative sample of Chilean children between 6 and 35 months old (n = 3,992), and…

Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,307) were used to estimate the additive and multiplicative benefits of high-quality child care between birth to 54 months of age and high-quality elementary school education between first and fifth grade. Results indicated…

This study examines why African-American caregivers in low-income urban neighborhoods in the United States transition their children between different childcare arrangements involving relative care, home/family care and center-based care, based on interviews conducted with 40 caregivers from three different childcare centers in one metropolitan…

Among asylum seekers in the EU, many are families with young children (0-4 years). In policy and practice, however, these children remain invisible. During the asylum proceedings, which can take quite some time, there is hardly any pedagogical offer available in reception centres nor are there clear policies to guarantee accessible, useful and…

Child care centre attendance is associated with an increased risk of concurrent ear infections, but what is less clear is whether there are any positive or negative long-term effects of early child care attendance on the incidence of ear infections in later childhood. This research assessed the impact of early child care attendance on concurrent…