Abstract
The current investigation examined whether two dimensions of children's temperament-effortful control and negative emotionality-moderated links between mothers' welfare and work transitions and preschoolers' developmental trajectories (N = 445). Data were drawn from a sample of low-income, predominantly ethnic minority children and their mothers, when children were ages 2-4, and again 16 months later. Among children whose mothers' left welfare or entered work, high effortful control and low negative emotionality were not protective factors in children's socioemotional or cognitive functioning. However, when mothers experienced job loss or entered the welfare system, preschoolers with high effortful control displayed better developmental outcomes over time than children with low effortful control.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1102-1123 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Children and Youth Services Review |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2006 |
Funding
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the following funding agencies and foundations: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (RO1 HD36093 “Welfare Reform and the Well-Being of Children”), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Administration on Developmental Disabilities, Administration for Children and Families, Social Security Administration, National Institute of Mental Health, Boston Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Searle Fund for Policy Research, and Woods Fund of Chicago. This research was also supported by a dissertation fellowship awarded to the first author from the Spencer Foundation. Previous versions of this manuscript were presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and the 2005 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. We thank Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Ariel Kalil, and Shelley Waters Boots for their comments on prior versions of this paper, Jason Szanyi for his research assistance, and the children and families who participated in this study.
Keywords
- Cognitive development
- Preschoolers
- Socioemotional development
- Temperament
- Welfare reform
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Sociology and Political Science