Offering intensive parent support programs within an early childhood setting recognises that early childhood educators are uniquely placed to form highly supportive and ongoing relationships with children and their families as part of their everyday work. This feature of early childhood programs can be utilised to include educators as partners in…

The Parent-Child Psychotherapy Program (PPP) is a multifamily group therapy intervention for parents and young children at high risk for intergenerational patterns of neglect, abuse, and disorganized attachment. A "developmental and experiential model" that incorporates principles of attachment theory, the PPP addresses parent and child needs…

The aim of this report was to investigate the associations between attachment state of mind, romantic attachment style, and indices of maternal functioning in two relational spheres: the mother-child relationship (i.e., maternal sensitivity and child attachment security) and the marital relationship (i.e., mothers' and their partners' marital…

We set out to explore the meaning of the attachment categories in the Cassidy/Marvin strange situation procedure, as employed in the home, using data from a longitudinal study of children adopted into UK families up to the age of 42 months from Romanian institutions, and of adopted children without the experience of institutional care--both groups…

Objectives: We evaluated a new attachment-oriented intervention aimed at improving parental mind-mindedness, promoting positive parent-child relationships, and reducing child psychopathology in families with adopted children. Method: The sample consisted of 20 families with adopted children (2-5 years of age). After the pretest, the intervention…

This article focuses on the experience of "Desirae," a young mother who participated with her children in services at The Children's Ark, an attachment-based intervention for families in foster care. The story of Desirae and her children highlights both the sometimes paradoxical truths about families fractured by addiction, abuse, and neglect and…

Child social anxiety is common, and predicts later emotional and academic impairment. Offspring of socially anxious mothers are at increased risk. It is important to establish whether individual vulnerability to disorder can be identified in young children. The responses of 4.5 year-old children of mothers with social phobia (N = 62) and…

This study examined classifications of attachment in 42-month-old Romanian children (N = 169). Institutionalized since birth, children were assessed comprehensively, randomly assigned to care as usual (CAU) or to foster care, and compared to family-reared children. Attachment classifications for children in foster care were markedly different from…

Early childhood professionals know that good fathering has a profound impact on children. Research confirms that when fathers are involved in the lives of their children, positive outcomes can be expected; when fathers are not involved in their children's lives, more negative outcomes can be seen. Fathers can play an integral role as attachment…

The aim of this prospective study was to identify preschool factors that are associated with children's classroom engagement during their 1st school year. The study was guided by a social-motivational process model that highlights the importance of parent-child and teacher-child relationships in promoting engagement. In preschool, parents and…

An estimated 50 to 60% of children from typical families develop secure attachment relationships with their parents (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988); however, intervention research has focused primarily on interventions for high-risk clinical samples (Berlin, Zeanah, & Lieberman, 2008). In this project,…

Utilizing data from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we investigated mothers' talk about mental states during play with their 24-month-old children as a mechanism though which infant-mother attachment was associated with children's later…

The psychometric qualities of two instruments that measure children's perceptions of teacher-child relationships were evaluated in a sample of kindergartners (N = 150): The Young Children's Appraisals of Teacher Support (Y-CATS) and the Kindergartner-Teacher Interaction Computer (KLIC) test. On the Y-CATS, children judged propositions on a…

Past research suggests that maternal and paternal parenting processes differentially contribute to children's adjustment. However, the contribution of paternal warmth and responsiveness, to childhood attachment security is less understood, especially beyond the preschool years. The current study examined relations between parenting and attachment…

Maternal resolution of a child's diagnosis relates to sensitive caregiving and healthy attachment. Failure to resolve is associated with maternal distress, high caregiving burden, and the quality of marital and social support. This study examined maternal resolution of diagnosis in a child psychiatric population utilizing the Reaction to Diagnosis…