Teachers’ language modeling behaviors, including frequent conversation, open-ended questions, repetition and extension, self- and parallel talks, and advanced language, have significantly impacted young children’s language learning and development. This study examined 60 classrooms from 20 kindergartens in Guangzhou, China, and analyzed 62 films of daily activities and 57 videos of free play. It aims to address the research gap in existing research that pays little attention to teachers’ language modeling behaviors in daily activities and free play. The results indicate that the more frequent teachers’ language modeling behaviors, the larger the vocabulary young children use and the better their performance in lexical richness. However, such behaviors in daily activities and free play are infrequent and superficial, failing to guide young children’s language development effectively. To optimize teachers’ language modeling behaviors in daily activities and free play, they are expected to establish positive emotional bonds with young children in a kind and respectful manner and receive training. Teachers are also encouraged to frequently communicate and engage in dialogues with young children, create contexts that facilitate the use of language, increase the frequency of stimuli for vocabulary learning, and guide and encourage young children’s advanced language.
Teachers play a vital role in the implementation of social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum. This study focuses on the Second Step program of the Committee for Children (CFC) and its roll-out at two kindergartens in Shanghai. It aims to assess how Chinese preschool teachers effectively put into action the SEL curriculum, considering knowledge, emotions, perception, and behavior dimensions. Utilizing NVivo12 software, interviews with 10 teachers are analyzed, revealing that advancements in teachers’ social and emotional competencies correlate with their ability to transform SEL knowledge into practice. Teachers’ perceptions of SEL significance reflect their level of SEL knowledge and influence their daily practice. Moreover, education integrating knowledge with emotions is achieved by combining knowledge, emotions, and perception. The findings highlight the following approaches to be adopted for better SEL curriculum outcomes, suggesting enhancing teachers’ cultural sensitivity and exploring SEL within the Chinese cultural context, establishing a community of SEL practices to facilitate dialogue between teachers’ personal knowledge and authoritative knowledge, and providing targeted support for teachers’ work integrating knowledge with emotions.
Intensive parenting is becoming a prevalent parenting style in China. Parents invest tremendous time, energy, and money in childrearing, whereas the effectiveness of intensive parenting in helping children obtain developmental advantages remains controversial. Using the questionnaire survey, the present study investigates 388 mothers of preschoolers in Shanghai and Jinan, Shandong province, to explore the associations between the intensiveness of mothering, maternal psychological well-being, and preschoolers’ emotional and behavioral competence. Four distinct patterns of the intensiveness of mothering are identified using latent profile analysis: high-endorsement & high-practice, medium-endorsement & medium-practice, low-endorsement & low practice, and selective-endorsement-and-practice. Maternal psychological well-being suppresses the relationship between the intensiveness of mothering and preschoolers’ emotional and behavioral competence. The intensiveness of mothering is positively related to preschoolers’ emotional and behavioral competence after excluding the indirect effect of maternal psychological well-being. In addition, mothers from profiles showing higher levels of the intensiveness of mothering have worse psychological well being, and their preschoolers have lower levels of social-emotional development. The two pathways counteract each other, resulting in a non-significant overall relationship between the intensiveness of mothering and preschoolers’ emotional and behavioral competence. The present study suggests that mothers may adjust their attitudes and practices toward intensive parenting, actively mediate their psychological well-being, and create a supportive environment for children’s social-emotional development. Families, preschools, and society as a whole are recommended to establish collaborative mechanisms to support mothers’ childrearing and reduce their parenting stress.
Social support is an essential source of support for preschool children’s fathers to alleviate parenting anxiety, deal with parenting pressure, improve parenting methods, and enhance parenting sense of competence. Psychological capital serves as a critical psychological resource for preschoolers’ fathers, helping them cope with parenting stress and enhancing parenting efficacy. To explore the mediating mechanism of psychological capital between social support and the parenting sense of competence of preschoolers’ fathers, this study employs stratified sampling to survey 678 fathers from three cities of Henan province in China. The survey instruments mainly consist of the Social Support Rating Scale, Psychological Capital Questionnaire, and Parenting Sense of Competence Scale. Research findings show that social support, psychological capital, and fathers’ parenting sense of competence are at the middle level. Significant positive correlations exist among social support, psychological capital, and parenting sense of competence. Social support can positively predict fathers’ parenting sense of competence, while psychological capital partially mediates between social support and parenting sense of competence. Therefore, it is possible to increase social support for preschool children’s fathers and improve their psychological capital to relieve their parenting pressure, enhance their parenting participation, and strengthen their parenting sense of competence.
Does enrolling children aged 0–3 in early childhood education (ECE) classes continuously empower their learning and development after entering kindergarten? Based on the tracking survey data of 664 children aged 3–6 in 2017 and 367 children aged 3–6 in 2018, this study uses Propensity Score Matching to analyze this issue. The findings reveal that children’s family socioeconomic status is a key factor influencing their participation in ECE classes. The baseline data show that participation in ECE classes does not significantly improve children’s learning and development. However, the follow-up data show that participation in ECE classes plays a significant negative role in motor development for children moving to their second year of kindergarten, but subsequently plays a positive role in language development, health, and safety for those entering their third year of kindergarten. Overall, participation in ECE classes plays no continuous positive role in children’s learning and development after they enter kindergarten. Based on these findings, it is suggested that parents should respect the natural laws of child development instead of blindly following the trend of attending ECE classes, and high-quality parental companionship is crucial. The Chinese government is supposed to implement policies such as “double reduction” to regulate ECE institutions that fail to operate in good faith.
Conflicting results have existed in research on the relationship between screen exposure and behavior problems among preschoolers, so it is necessary to clarify the relationship and provide guidelines regulating their screen usage. Through searching and screening of literature, 48 independent samples from 43 quantitative studies are included in the meta-analysis, with 76,049 participants. The results show a weak positive correlation between screen exposure and behavior problems among preschoolers (r = 0.169). The findings show that preschoolers’ age and length of exposure have a significantly moderate effect on the relationship between screen exposure and behavior problems among preschoolers, while media types and study design do not. Additionally, a stronger correlation is observed between excessive screen exposure and behavior problems among preschoolers aged 0–3. Recommendations for the appropriate use of digital media among preschoolers and media education are also presented.