Mom or dad sharing and modelling how to manage aggression and upset may explain why some impoverished young children grow up more resilient.

Why do some children who are raised amid poverty, risk and danger emerge as more resilient than others in similar circumstances ? Why do some grow up relatively unscathed compared with their peers, whose later lives may be scarred by criminality, poor mental health, and repeated disadvantage?

Having a calm, supportive parent when something goes wrong may be part of the answer. That’s a mom or dad who responds to early childhood frustration, anger, anxiety or tantrums by neither suppressing those emotions nor ignoring them. Rather, such parents are empathetic and understanding, and they help children to steady themselves. They also model this steadiness in the way they deal with the adversities that they encounter. That’s not easy for parents who may themselves be struggling with multiple challenges. But our research suggests that doing it well can make a big difference for their children.

Emotionally supportive parenting has long term impacts

This parental skill of helping young children handle their emotions – in difficult social and economic circumstances that may provoke many strong feelings – can support emotional self-management. This in turn enables young children to concentrate better at school and get along with others. We know from other studies of self-regulation that, in the longer run, these skills help children to grow up at lower risk of anxiety, depression, violent behavior and criminal acts. As adults, they operate better at work, at home and within the law.

We’re not necessarily talking about parents working miracles amid adversity. Emotionally supportive parenting can’t turn around every impact of the many difficulties faced by children who, in their early years, may experience poor, crowded housing, an inadequate diet, and insufficient stimulation, surrounded by badly resourced neighbourhoods. But our research shows that, for these children, emotionally supportive parenting can flatten the curve: it can at least stop things from getting worse.

“What do parents do, when, for example,  a young child becomes angry because someone has done something unfair to them, such as take their toy?”

Our study examined the relationship between emotion-related parenting and externalising symptoms such as aggression across early school years among 207 children (two-thirds of them boys) from high-risk urban communities in the United States, who showed aggressive/oppositional behaviors when they started school. Their mothers’ level of supportive, emotion-related parenting was observed in the year of kindergarten during structured interactions at home. Our measure captured how parents responded to children’s emotions, how parents talked about emotions, and the way parents expressed their own emotions. Teacher ratings of externalising symptoms, including aggressive and rule-breaking behaviors, were then measured every year to the second grade.

Aggression rose amid less-skilled parenting

Aggressive behavior worsened among children who lacked emotionally supportive parenting. Each year, teachers reported seeing more problems than in the year before. In contrast, when mothers offered supportive emotion-related parenting, the children did not necessarily improve, but they didn’t get worse. Emotionally supportive parenting seems to halt the escalation in aggression as children grow older, which, research shows, can predict so many difficulties in later life.

In practical terms, we are talking about what parents do, when, for example, young children become angry because someone has done something unfair to them, such as take their toy. A child might want to scream, start crying or punch the child that took the toy. But a parent can encourage a range of strategies to help the upset child avoid following this first impulse.

Doing so might be difficult. The parent might be struggling with a host of other serious issues, such as how to pay the rent, living in a dangerous neighbourhood and parenting a difficult child. These problems can weigh on the parents, making it hard for them to sympathise in the moment about the relatively insignificant problems faced by their child. Mom or dad’s response might be: ‘Life’s unfair. You have no idea. I hate my job.’ They might think it best to toughen up the child to face disappointments, telling them to suck it up and cope with it.

But that’s not as helpful – even when the upset seems to be around something apparently trivial – as when a parent sympathises, talks things through, and helps the child understand their feelings. Simply labelling an emotion, saying it is normal, helps children regulate their reactions. Parents can also help children develop a step-by-step strategy when feeling upset, such as taking deep breaths and calming themselves. Afterwards, parents might say, ‘I’m sorry that your toy was taken, but let’s leave it in the past and do something fun now.’ That can help children who are feeling negative to know that their emotions are understood while giving them a way of coming back and feeling better.

Opportunities to model emotion-related parenting

A lot of parents also find opportunities in daily life – when a young child is not expressing emotions – of exploring feelings and how to handle them. When parents and children read a book, they might encounter a character who is experiencing difficulties. That’s an opportunity to talk about what the character is feeling and what the character could do.

Parents can also model how they deal with their own stress. Parents are the gateway to the world for young children. Stress can either flow through parents by affecting how they respond to their children, or parents can make the decision to demonstrate how stress can be handled. This doesn’t mean parents should hide their emotions, or the fact that they are upset or scared. Children are way too good at picking up on that. It’s better for parents to acknowledge that they are worried and explain how they are going to handle what’s going on. They can say: ‘This is how we will resolve it and, if you are worried about it too, let’s do something together about it.’ These parents are modelling that emotions are normal and that there are ways to manage them.

In our research sample, we did not see a lot of emotionally supportive parenting. Only 10 per cent of the mothers showed consistently emotionally supportive parenting. But where they could offer it, we saw a flattening of the curve, so that, over time, the increased aggression and externalising behavior found in other children were less likely to occur.

Learning to be more empathetic parents 

There is potential to improve this picture further. Few programs specifically focus on emotion-related parenting. One that does so is Tuning in to Kids, which has been tested in low- to middle-income families in Australia. This program had moderate to strong effects, at least in the short term, in improving parents’ supportive behaviors and in reducing parents’ dismissive reactions to children’s emotions.

“Emotionally supportive parenting seems to halt an escalation in aggression as children grow older, which can predict so many difficulties in later life.”

It has also been shown to be effective when implemented in families with children who already demonstrated behavioral problems (similar to our sample), or went through traumatic experiences. And researchers also found improvements in children’s behaviors when parents participated in the program, compared to a control group. This evidence suggests that there may be strong potential to promote supportive, emotion-related parenting behaviors through training programs, even for families in disadvantaged situations.

Many other parent training programs, such as Triple-P and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, may not specifically target emotion-related parenting, but they include components that try to promote parents’ sensitivity to children’s emotional cues, such as signals that may indicate a child is upset, and teach parents skills to help children regulate emotions.  These programs have been tested in diverse populations, including families living in disadvantaged communities or families with children already showing behavioral problems. They have led to more positive parenting, such as warmth, effective discipline, and sensitivity, as well as improvements in children’s behaviors.

Parents should recognise their achievements

A key message from our research is that children may display behavior problems for many reasons, particularly given the multiple difficulties that disadvantaged families face. Parents should not beat themselves up and be judged as failures if their children continue to have behavioral problems. Their interventions might be doing a lot to stop their children from getting worse amid multiple challenges. That huge achievement should be celebrated.

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Controlling parenting is counterproductive, undermining children’s self-regulation and their capacities for responsibility.

Parents can often feel confused when they hear that it’s good for children to have parents who are in control of their households, but that controlling parenting is bad for them.

Mom and dad may feel caught between these two pieces of advice, suggesting that control can be good but also bad for children. How is a parent to know what’s right and when?

That’s why our research has identified a more straightforward way to think about raising children. It distinguishes between children having ‘structure’ (healthy) as opposed to children being pushed through controlling parenting (unhealthy).

What is Controlling Parenting?

In short, controlling parenting is a harsh style of parenting in which a parent keeps close tabs on their children’s lives and tend to have strict rules and expectations for their children. Controlling parents typically enforce these rules with little room for negotiation or flexibility, and prioritise discipline over fostering independence or open communication with their child.

Difference between controlling parenting and parenting which provides ‘structure’

Structure can involve rules, guidelines and limits so that children know what’s expected of them and the consequences of their actions. That helps them learn successfully and avoid getting into trouble. But structure does not have to be imposed in a controlling manner.

Structure can be developed in ways that also support children’s autonomy. Parents can get together with their children to figure out rules and consequences. There can be back and forth. Dissension can be heard and discussed.

Parents can listen to critical feedback and empathise with children’s dislike of tasks, be it doing chores or homework. So structure can support autonomy and children’s agency. But, ultimately, rules and guidance are established, so this approach is not simply permissive.  Supporting children’s autonomy is actually very active and does not involve a loss of parental authority or agency.

“Controlling parenting was associated with children experiencing increased anxiety and depression, particularly in more dangerous neighbourhoods where children need to experience personal competence and agency.”

This approach contrasts with controlling parenting, where parents push and pressure children into actions over which they may have little say, and parents dictate without allowing genuine input from children. Such parenting can sometimes involve harsh discipline, including corporal punishment.

How controlling parenting can harm children

 Controlling parenting can undermine children’s self-regulation and their capacity for responsibility. Instead of learning how to manage their own behavior, children may become reactive, responding negatively to being controlled. This may lead them to do the opposite of what is demanded, not from personal choice, but as a reaction against too much pressure.

We tested these two aspects of parenting, structured and controlling, in a study of 215 children and their families in several parts of Worcester, Massachusetts. We looked at whether parents were controlling and pressuring or whether they supported autonomy. We also tested whether they provided structure or whether rules and guidelines were lacking.

We were particularly interested in how parenting of children worked out in more dangerous neighbourhoods. Some experts argue that controlling parenting is the right thing to do in such areas because children are at risk and need their parents to protect them—and that autonomy-supportive parenting, which takes children’s opinions into account and allows them to offer input, is more appropriate in safer neighbourhoods.

Supporting autonomy is vital in dangerous neighbourhoods

Our study found that in all the neighbourhoods, irrespective of their intrinsic dangers, overbearing or controlling parenting increased anxiety and depression in children. Indeed, these symptoms were particularly exacerbated in more dangerous neighbourhoods.

This is probably because children in dangerous neighbourhoods particularly need a sense of competence and agency and to be able to solve problems and manage those difficulties, so they need parenting that supports their autonomy.

Controlling parents can undermine feelings of autonomy and competence. Yet, it is precisely the danger of some neighbourhoods that can lead parents to use more pressure and be less collaborative because they worry about the risks their children face.

“Most parents believe, in principle, in children’s autonomy, but sometimes worries and internal pressures cause them to push their children.”

Our study also found that when parents provided more structure, children were less likely to show depression and anxiety and less like to act out problems, no matter whether the neighbourhood was considered dangerous or safe.

Controlling parenting is driven by three diverse sources of stress

 Research highlights three kinds of stress that can lead parents to adopt more pressuring and controlling approaches – stressful situations, stress from within and stress from children themselves.

• First, stressful situations—from work, poverty or relationships—can narrow parents’ focus, making them less empathetic. We have shown that negative life events such as divorce, having to move, and financial difficulties are all associated with controlling parenting.
• Second, parents can feel pressure from within—they may feel that they must make their children competitive for what seems like a “dog-eat-dog” world, or a parent’s own self-esteem may rely on their children doing well. We have conducted studies that identified parents whose sense of worth was particularly tied to their children’s performance. We then tested how they interacted with their children and found that they were more likely to be controlling.
• A third source of pressure to be controlling can come from children themselves. It’s much easier to encourage input and autonomy in children who are easier to deal with and more cooperative than with children who are difficult and challenging. Studies have established that the parents of difficult children are more likely be controlling.

Help parents to understand what motivates children

How can we encourage parents to shift from harmful, controlling parenting to parenting that supports autonomy? This is a crucial question, particularly for parents who are raising children in stressful situations or neighbourhoods full of risks for their children.

To encourage this shift from controlling parenting, it’s helpful to recognise that many parents believe, in principle, in the value of children’s autonomy. They want their children to do what interests them and to be happy. But in stressful situations, they often find themselves pushing and pressuring the children. This is similar to attitudes about corporal punishment: many parents who spank their children don’t actually agree with such punishment, later regret their actions, and are open to learning about alternatives.

“Parents need to know how to provide guidance, expectations, and standards, but in ways that do not undermine children’s autonomy and personal responsibility.”

We have designed and tested an intervention that helps parents shift from a controlling approach to one that supports their children’s autonomy. We don’t just teach strategies. We also explain motivational theory so parents understand how increasing children’s autonomy will fuel their energy for what they do.

This helps parents to see why controlling parenting can backfire. Understanding the theory gives parents something to fall back on when times are difficult and they are tempted to pressure and push children in a dictatorial fashion. This intervention has shown good results, with controlling parents changing their behaviors and becoming more autonomy-supporting.

We have to help parents who rely on controlling methods out of the binds in which they can find themselves. They need to know how they can provide guidance, expectations, and standards, but in ways that do not undermine children’s sense of autonomy and personal responsibility.

Avoid rewarding activities that children already love

 We encourage parents to use this knowledge in two ways. For activities that children love to do, support and encourage them without getting in front of them. So if they love soccer, support it without being pushy. Intrinsically motivated activities can easily start to feel extrinsically motivated when parents push and pressure. That can be counterproductive, putting children off doing what they previously loved.

However, some important activities are not naturally attractive or interesting to children. It’s vital to set some rules, expectations, and guidelines for these activities but also to provide well-discussed reasons so that children can internalise them.

A parent might say: “Keeping a clean room is important because then you can find your things and you won’t attract bugs that can make you sick.” This approach allows a parent to develop rules and expectations in concert with a child, empathising with the fact that they might not want to do what’s asked of them. Parents can give choices to help avoid children feeling controlled:  “Would you rather clean your room on Saturday morning or after school?”

Parents need to be careful to differentiate between activities that children love to do and those that they don’t enjoy – and alter their behaviour accordingly. If parents reward children for things they already love to do, then, sometimes, children won’t want to do them anymore.

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New data on test scores of five-year olds suggest supporting parents to balance work and care, and providing subsidised preschool daycare, could help to limit the consequences of income inequality for children.

Previous research on income inequality has shown that differences in early cognitive development between children from high-income and low-income families are greater in the USA than in other countries. A new research project shows that a given level of income inequality is associated with larger gaps in how five-year-olds complete cognitive tests (language and literacy) in the USA than in the UK, Australia and Canada.

Three researchers, Bruce Bradbury, Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Washbrook, explored the role of five factors known to be related to child development in reinforcing income inequalities: the extent to which children in different income groups live with both parents, the likelihood that children attend daycare, the likelihood that children have an immigrant parent, the average hours worked by mothers, and the likelihood that a child’s mother was very young when she gave birth. For all these factors, higher-income families in USA have a greater advantage over lower-income families than do their higher-income counterparts in other countries.

This finding is consistent with the policy conclusions derived from other research: income inequality’s contribution to unequal child development can be reduced by helping parents to balance work and care, and by providing subsidised preschool daycare.

Using existing income inequality studies in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada, the researchers compared five income groups across the four countries (using price adjustments to show all in US$):

Quintile 1 (Q1)            <$27K

Quintile 2 (Q2)            $27K-$44K

Quintile 3 (Q3)            $44K-$65K

Quintile 4 (Q4)            $65K-$96K

Quintile 5 (Q5)            > $96K

Previous work has shown that income itself is very important. A better income not only allows parents to invest more in their children (including living in a safer neighborhood), but also supports family stability and resilience to stress. Income inequality is greater in USA. Compared to all the other countries, a larger proportion of families in the USA are in the lowest income group. And compared to Australia and Canada, a larger proportion of families in the USA are in the highest income group.

But income is not the only factor that can drive inequality. Setting aside the fact that in USA a greater proportion of parents are in the very low and very high income groups, the difference in average cognitive test performance of children from the highest group (Q5) compared to the lowest group (Q1) is larger in the USA, though not very different from the UK. Strikingly, where the USA truly stands out is in how far the highest-income children (Q5) pull away from the middle-income group of children (Q3).

The researchers found that in the five areas, differences between the higher-income (Q5 and Q4) and middle-income (Q3) groups in the USA were significantly more pronounced than in other countries.

• Five-year-old children living with both biological parents

The difference in the proportion of five-year-olds living with both biological parents in Q4 and Q5 families versus Q3 families is considerably higher in the USA compared to the other countries.

Living with both biological parents is associated with better cognitive outcomes, so this factor may be contributing to the greater difference between average- and higher-income families in the USA.

• Attending center-based care before going to school

Q4 and Q5 parents in the USA are much more likely than Q3 parents to send children to preschool, compared to the other countries.

This is probably because preschool care is more subsidised in the other countries, so less exclusively available to the well-off. This disparity is likely to be linked to differences in average cognitive test scores.

• Proportion of children with an immigrant parent

Q4 and Q5 families in the USA are less likely than Q3 families to include an immigrant parent. In the other countries, Q4 and Q5 families are more likely to include an immigrant parent.

Having an immigrant parent is associated with additional difficulties associated with social integration. This finding suggests that higher-income children in the USA are less likely to be held back by such difficulties, on average.

• Average hours worked by mothers of five-year-olds

In the UK, Canada and Australia, mothers in higher-income families are likely to work considerably longer hours than middle-income mothers, which could be associated with lower cognitive scores for their five-year-olds. But in the USA, mothers in higher-income families work less, potentially combining the benefits of higher income and greater parental presence.

• Proportion of mothers under age 20 at childbirth

In the UK and Australia, very few mothers in either the middle- or high-income groups were less than 20 years old when their child was born. In the USA, however, the proportion of such mothers is considerably higher in the middle-income group. Having a young mother is known to be associated with lower cognitive performance at age five.

The research project didn’t look at some other potential factors that could be related to income inequality. For one, the cost of high-quality daycare is higher in the USA because the other countries provide more universal publicly funded care. That means access to high-quality daycare is more exclusive to higher-income groups in the USA. (This is offset, however, by substantial programmes, such as Head Start, for very low-income families in the USA.) Another key factor may be residential segregation: more segregation exacerbates income quality because it leads to more concentration of advantages and disadvantage between income groups in different neighborhoods.

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Transforming supermarkets, bus stops and park benches for learning through play could cut educational gulfs between rich and poor.

In the supermarket, signs prompt parents to ask children where milk comes from. ‘Count the carrots,’ suggests another sign. At a bus stop, children complete puzzles on the back of a bench. Some play hopscotch, jumping from one foot to another. Others search for images of food and animals hidden in the metal work. They wonder why, as the day passes, the images cast different shadows on the ground. This is learning through play.

Is this the future for child development – where academic skills are built by learning through play out and about, in the community, not just in school? We think it’s possible.

Rethinking public spaces for creative learning

That’s why we’ve transformed often mundane public spaces into places of learning through play to foster interaction, conversation and real learning in areas like language, literacy and STEM subjects. Behind the fun lies a big ambition: to use the 80 per cent of waking time that children spend outside school to improve their readiness to learn, social-emotional skills, scientific curiosity and educational achievement.

““Can you spot a big one,” a picture of a giant tomato asked at the fruit and vegetable aisle. Suddenly, low income families were chatting much more.’”

We need to do more than expand early education to put lower income children on a more equal footing with their peers. Our approach augments what’s often used in children’s museums, with the potential to reach greater numbers. It’s not confined to single locations that require entry payments.

Our goal is to create communities intentionally designed for learning through play by all children. We’re not trying to shove learning down children’s throats but rather to enhance cities so they’re rife with opportunity for families and children to communicate. The aim is to avoid extra financial burdens and focus on everyday facilities, such as bus stops and benches that cities already maintain.

Each initiative is evaluated, and our early findings are promising. Crucially, they suggest that such initiatives hold the promise of reducing gaps between children from underserved communities and their more affluent peers.

The supermarket becomes a fun school

Take the supermarket as a place of learning through play, for example. Before signage went up, carers and children in a low-income neighbourhood supermarket interacted considerably less well than those in a middle income supermarket. Then, we added our ‘healthy language’ signs in each store.

“Is this the future – where academic skills are built out and about, in the community, not just in school?”

‘Can you spot a big one?’ asked a picture of a giant tomato in the fruit and vegetable aisle. ‘A small one? Which ones are heavy? Or light?’ Suddenly families were chatting much more: language interactions in families from underserved neighbourhoods rose by a third. Parents described more of what they could see for their children. They asked them more questions, pointed out more products. Children did likewise for the grown-ups. And it turns out that these conversations can make all the difference in building foundations for language growth.

Increased parental interaction for lower income children 

However, there was little impact among families in the higher-end supermarket. That difference led to an intriguing outcome. There are no hard and fast rules tying conversation levels to socioeconomic status – some lower-income families talk a lot, and some higher-income families don’t. Still, there is a generally identified conversation and interaction gap between middle- and lower-income families, and it was eliminated by our supermarket learning through play experiment. Such findings suggest that transforming public spaces might help families ‘catch up’ – chipping away at educational inequities between socioeconomic groups that remain stubbornly large, despite preschool education.

The supermarket initiative is one example of the ‘Learning Landscapes’ project, begun in the United States but now undergoing experimentation internationally, from Johannesburg to London. It takes the goal of greater educational equity and combines it with the Conscious Cities movement, which aims to create more intuitive, responsive, people-centric cities. Urban areas are a good place to start learning-through-play initiatives since by 2030, 70 per cent of children are expected to be living in cities, worldwide.

Photo: Sahar Coston-Hardy.

Reduced learning through play in classrooms

 The potential benefits could be huge: much of the ‘other 80 per cent’ of children’s waking time – when they aren’t at school – is spent in the home and community. Can we design playful learning to infuse public spaces with fun, engaging and stimulating learning possibilities? Can we create playful learning piazzas? This could be an important breakthrough at a time when play is diminishing in many preschool and kindergarten classrooms.

“We’ve taken the science of learning out of the ivory tower and into the streets.”

Underpinning each initiative is the science of learning which we’ve brought out of the ivory tower and into the streets. At supermarkets in Philadelphia, the signs target language and mathematics skills. At bus stops, the puzzles build early spatial and mathematics skills. Hopscotch targets executive functions – working memory, problem-solving and planning. Shoe prints encourage children to jump, developing their abilities to control impulses and to think flexibly as they match the random patterns and find their next steps.

The ‘hidden figures’ in the bus stops’ metal work, casting different shadows on the ground, are like a version of hide and seek, promoting curiosity and exploration. They build problem solving. Spatial skills develop as children figure out how the shadows are cast upon the ground

Learning through play in hospitals, jails and streets

The possibilities are numerous. One learning through play project plans to transform hospital waiting rooms, where families are often bored for hours. Another seeks to transform jails that house new mothers, so they can play better during visits with their babies. Seattle is developing stimulating and safe sidewalks on the way to school. And yet another city is considering how we might reshape low-income housing.

These projects use public spaces to forge a suite of 21st century skills that children are expected to gain in school but may find difficult in formal settings. In ‘Parkopolis’, in Philadelphia, a life-sized, playful-learning board game aims to enrich maths and science learning opportunities by playing outside.

Children roll dice to advance around the board and draw cards that engage them in mini-games along their way. The dice include not only whole numbers but also fractions. Spaces are divided into fourths. These help children to embody the fraction learning experience that can be difficult in formal school settings.

The next step is to test these learning-through-play initiatives at scale and in conjunction with one another. That would allow us to look for neighbourhood as well as individual affects.

We’re accustomed to seeing parents and schooling as important determinants of learning opportunities. At the juncture of the global cities movement and educational initiatives, we’re on the cusp of making the most of another determinant – place and neighbourhood.

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Compared to children in better-off areas, children living in a poor neighborhood do worse in math and language tests at ages 5-8, especially if they also live in poor households.

A poor neighborhood has fewer resources such as schools and healthcare, lower social support, less physical security and more crime.

Other research has shown that the longer children live in poor neighborhoods, the less they earn as adults. Previous studies have also found fewer effects of neighborhoods on measures of children’s development at younger ages.

The influence of neighborhood appears on test scores at the age of 5-8 even when controlling for household poverty and other family characteristics, though the associations between neighborhoods and children’s cognitive scores are small compared to those with family characteristics like income or parental education.

Poor children (i.e., those in very low-income homes) seem to be more harmed than others by growing up in poor neighborhoods, suggesting that boosting household income might help protect these children.

The study used data collected in by the US Department of Education, covering 18,000 children who started kindergarten in 2010-11. Children were tested four times: twice in kindergarten, once in first grade (6-7 years), and once in second grade (7-8 years).

The data also included teacher assessments of children’s behaviour – self-control, attention and focus, social skills, etc. But, unlike math and reading scores, behaviour was not consistently associated with neighborhood poverty.

The study adds to the evidence that children living in poorer neighborhoods need additional support to succeed in school.

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Lack of sleep is associated with difficulty in concentrating and reduced executive function. For four nights, the participants — a group of 82 children, 11-18 years old — wore an Actiwatch, which measures their sleep. They also filled in time diaries, and three times a day they provided saliva samples, which were measured for cortisol levels. Meanwhile, information on the location of every reported crime was obtained from the city police department During the study, 80 incidents of violent crime were reported – 43 assaults, 31 robberies, four sexual assaults and two homicides. Half the children had at least one crime occur close to their home during the short study.

Children went to bed later when a crime occurred near their home – on average, 38 minutes later on weekday nights. Homicides generated the strongest effect – bedtime was on average 1.81 hours later (though the sample for homicides was very small).

Cortisol levels on waking also increased the day after a violent crime, by 111%. Cortisol levels normally increase after waking as the body prepares for the day, but higher levels are associated with anxiety.

The data also suggested that the closer a crime occurred to a child’s home, the greater the impact on bedtime.

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Using data about 1,757 people from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (conducted in the USA from 1970 to 2011), Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz at the University of Michigan found a strong correlation between the average exposure to a poor quality neighborhood between the ages of 1 and 17 and later poor health. Those most exposed were two times more likely to report poor health when aged 18-30 than those least exposed.

Many studies have linked poor neighborhoods with poor health, but this is the first to examine the effects of length of exposure. A number of explanations for the link have been advanced:

• Lower social capital or less trading of free help and favors within the community.
• Less trust and ability to take collective action for the common good.
• Fewer resources, including health facilities.
• Greater exposure to air pollution, traffic and other physical dangers.

The study also found a striking difference in long-term exposure to a poor neighborhood between whites and nonwhites. At the age of 1, 74% of the nonwhites in the sample were living in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, compared to 16% of white children. At the age of 17, 59% of nonwhites were living in the most disadvantaged areas, compared to 10% of whites. Nonwhite children spent on average 67% of their time living in the most deprived areas, compared to 15% of white children; 61% of nonwhite children lived their entire lives in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, compared to 13% of whites.

Nonwhites in the sample were more than twice as likely to report poor health between the ages of 18 and 30.

Kravitz-Wirtz recommends paying more attention to creating long-term place-based investments in children and young people in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

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Researchers, led by Louis Donnelly at Princeton University, found that 15-year-old boys and girls were more likely to report better mental health if they lived in neighborhoods where residents get along and share common values, and where people can be counted on to take action if there is a local problem.

The study used data collected in 1998-2000 as part of the larger Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study in large US cities. The researchers looked at data from 2,264 15-year-olds. The teenagers reported their own feelings of depression and anxiety. Meanwhile, the state of the neighborhood was assessed by parents when children were between the ages of 3 and 9.

Most of the neighborhoods targeted in this study were disadvantaged. But after accounting for levels of social cohesion and social action, teenagers living in the poorer of these neighborhoods were no more likely to feel depressed or anxious than those in less disadvantaged areas. (Within a neighborhood, however, young people from poorer families were more likely to report depression and anxiety.)

The magnitude of the effect that the level of trust in a community has on adolescent depression and anxiety is similar to that of community programs that specifically set out to prevent depression in at-risk populations.

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The researchers – Laura Wray-Lake at the University of California, Los Angeles and Michelle Sloper at Claremont Graduate University in California, USA – found a lot of informal helping among the young people but much less political activity. The older the young people were, the more active they were. Girls were more involved in informal helping and less involved in politics than boys were.

The researchers looked at a number of factors that might encourage civic activity: civic learning in the classroom, family political discussions, a friendly neighborhood, family messages of compassion, trusted peer friendships and a positive environment at school.

Statistical analysis revealed that different environmental factors were linked to specific types of civic activity. The school, family, neighborhood, and peer supports, when combined together, were strongly linked to informal helping, meaning that support from multiple sources may promote helping others.

There were also particular links:

• Classroom civic learning was linked to more volunteering and greater political engagement, including online political activity.
• Family political discussions were linked to political activity.

Other factors, when they were examined by themselves, seemed to have less relevance to the degree of civic activity; these included a friendly neighbourhood, family messages of compassion, peer friendships and a positive school environment.

The study shows the importance of classroom civic learning in encouraging civic activity in young people.

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