Holly Weinschenk 4/13/2014 "Pathways From Teacher Depression and Child-Care Quality to Child Behavioral Problems"

As the rate of single mothers in America has gone up, so has the number of children in child care. In order for these single mothers to make enough money to support their children, they need to work full time jobs. This means that the children are spending an increasing amount of their early childhood in daycare, either in their own home or in centers outside of the home. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2012), 70.5% of single mothers with children under the age of six were part of the labor force. Because of the massive number of children in daycares, psychologists decided to research how the quality of the child-care would affect children in the long run. There have been a number of studies done in recent years about daycare quality and its relationship with child behavioral problems. However, one particular study took a new angle on the issue of daycare, and decided to research the effects of the teacher's mental health on childcare and behavioral outcomes. This study, titled "Pathways From Teacher Depression and Child-Care Quality to Child Behavioral Problems," aimed to understand the relationship between teacher depression and child behavioral problems in early child-care settings. The researchers "hypothesized that a higher degree of teachers' depression would predict more negative global child-care quality, which, in turn, would predict more negative behavioral outcomes above and beyond a set of child, family, teacher, and child-care characteristics" (Jeon, Buettner, & Snyder, 2014). The participants of this research study were taken from the Fragile Families and Child Welfare Study, which includes children born to unmarried parents between 1998-2000. In total, there were 761 children, at an average age of 3 years old, and 761 child care providers. The children participating in this study were mostly from minority groups, particularly of Black or Hispanic ethnicities (Jeon, Buettner, & Snyder, 2014). During the research, a variety of measures were taken in order to collect the data. For instance, child care providers were measured for

depression using the Johns Hopkins Symptom Checklist, quality of child-care was rated based on the condition of the facility and learning activities, and child behavior problems were assessed by surveys given to both the parents and the teachers. In addition to these measures, the type of child care (either in-home or out-of-home) was taken into account as well as characteristics of the child, mother, household, teacher, and classroom (Jeon, Buettner, & Snyder, 2014). After collecting all of the data and analyzing the results of the study, the researchers supported their hypothesis. First off, there was a statistical significance for the negative correlation between teacher depression and child-care quality. In general, the more depressive symptoms that the teacher showed, the lower quality the child-care was. Also, there was a positive correlation between teacher depression child behavioral problems. Interestingly, there was a statistical significance between teacher depression and teacher reported behavior problems as well as between teacher depression and parent reported behavior problems. One of the most important results of the study was that there was no statistical significance or correlation between any of the mother, child, teacher, or child-care characteristics that predicted teacher or parent reported behavioral problems (Jeon, Buettner, & Snyder, 2014). This result was significant because it eliminated these characteristics as a variable predicting the behavioral problems, so that the only correlation relating to behavioral problems was that of teacher depression. Therefore, all of the results were consistent with the hypotheses that the psychologists created at the beginning of the study. While there were a lot of advantages to this study, there were also some aspects that could be changed in further research. One advantage of this study was the large sample size. Previous studies about child-care and behavioral outcomes tended to have very small sample sizes, usually around 30 or 40 participants. With 716 participants, this study had a very large

sample size, which decreases some of the effects of individual variation and makes the results more consistent. Another advantage was that both parents and teachers filled out surveys about the child's behavioral problems. It was important to have two different people giving this information because they both see the child in different contexts where behavior is often different. Also, it eliminates bias that either the teacher or the parent may have towards the child. However, one thing that could be improved in future research is to make the sample more diverse. All of the children were born to unwed parents, were born to parents with low socioeconomic statuses, and most were from minority groups. While some of the maternal and home characteristics were accounted for by the researchers, it would still be interesting to see if these results would hold true if middle class children born to married parents were included in the study. It is important to have a diverse sample that is representative of the population in order to generalize findings to the population. Another disadvantage of this study was that it was not longitudinal. The teachers and mothers reported the child's behavior at the time that the study began, when most of the children were only three years old. As a three year old, there is still a lot of room for change in behavior. Younger children vary greatly in their maturity levels and emotional regulation, both of which play a role in behavior. A longitudinal study would be better fitting for this data because it would track children as they develop and see if the behavior problems persist into late childhood and adolescence. This would give more accurate data about whether or not teacher depression has a long term effect on child-behavioral outcomes. In general, this research study related to the concepts of emotional development in early childhood. One key aspect of emotional development is emotional regulation, which is "the ability to inhibit, or minimize, the intensity and duration of emotional reactions" (Santrock, 2014). A lot of behavioral problems, like the ones researched in this study, are a result of poor

emotional regulation. As the child gets older, the ability to regulate emotions becomes increasingly important in social interactions and peer relationships. On a global scale, the results of this study could be beneficial to the future of education as a whole. Since there are more and more children entering preschool and daycare every year, there is an increase in demand for high quality child-care centers. This study showed that there is a positive correlation between teacher depression and child behavior problems, so in the future these results could increase the standards for new teachers being hired. A possible solution, which might be difficult to implement, would be for child-care centers to give teachers a questionnaire similar to the Johns Hopkins Symptom Checklist as part of the employment application process. Then, the daycares could try to hire more teachers who do not show signs of depression, or they could refer the teachers who display depressive symptoms for treatment before hiring them. A process like this one, if implemented, could potentially decrease the number of children who have behavior problems in the education system. Another result found in the study, which was not quite as relevant to the purpose of the research, was that child-care quality was significantly better for out-of-home centers than in-home child-care. This finding could also have implications on the future of child-care. If more mothers knew these results, then they might be more likely to put their child in a center of higher quality. As found in the study, there is a statistically significant negative correlation between child-care quality and child behavior problems. So, if more mothers decide to enroll their children in high quality daycare centers, this could indirectly have an effect on the number of young children with behavior problems. The only issue is that daycare centers often cost more than hiring someone for inhome daycare, so this is an expense that not all parents, especially single mothers, are able to afford. If there was a way to provide financial aid to parents in order to make preschool tuition

more affordable, then this could improve the quality of child-care that young children are receiving in the United States. Overall, if the findings from this particular research study put into action, they could leave an impact on the early childhood education system and the way that teachers are hired across the country.

Works Cited Jeon, L., Buettner, C. K., & Snyder, A. R. (2014). Pathways from teacher depression and childcare quality to child behavioral problems. Journal of counseling and clinical psychology, 82(2), 225-235. Retrieved April 10, 2014, from the Psych INFO database. Santrock, J. W. (2013). Children (12th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. U.S. Census Bureau. (2012). Statistical abstract of the United States: Labor force, employment, and earnings. Washington, DC: Author.