Key takeaways for caregivers

• Naps help learning in early childhood.
• Infant sleep is typically distributed across multiple bouts of sleep (morning and afternoon naps) until around 12 to 18 months.
• Multiple naps benefit infant learning while missed naps can harm learning.
• Research suggests the importance of healthy sleep routines for infants and caregiver education to support healthy sleep.

The benefits of  distributed sleep for memory

For adults, naps offer a period of solace, something we typically allow ourselves only on weekends or vacations. We long for these moments to replenish lost sleep due to our busy lives and to reset our minds after being overloaded with to-do lists.

Science supports the benefits of naps. In adults, naps benefit attention, emotion, and cognitive performance. Other researchers and I have shown that these benefits extend to naps in early childhood. For instance, the benefits of naps for memory have been observed in infants as young as three months and extend through three to five years, when children typically transition away from naps.

Why does distributed sleep help memory?

It is tempting to assume that naps help memory just by blocking out other stimuli that interfere with memories. Later in the day, we may forget the name of a person we met in the morning simply because we encountered so many other names and faces during the subsequent time awake.

Distributed sleeping may protect us from such interference. However, the benefits of sleep extend beyond just protecting memories from interference with ongoing learning.

Naps have been consistently shown to support memory consolidation, even in early infancy.

Memories are strengthened during sleep

While we sleep, memories are strengthened through a process called consolidation.

When we learn something, the memories are initially stored in the hippocampus in the brain.

The hippocampus is small and not a very “smart” storage area  –  all memories get put into a single bucket regardless of their content (e.g., memories of family, a book you read, and your work are all in one place).

Memories are replayed during sleep

When we sleep, these memories are replayed. Memory replay is akin to rewatching (or replaying) the “movie” of your day. Just like repeatedly watching a scene from your favorite movie to learn all the words, the hippocampus replays memories while we sleep.

Replaying the memory makes a copy of the memory that is stored in the cortex. The cortex is a much smarter organizing system – more like a filing cabinet where similar memories can be stored together. This makes it easier and quicker to recall memories from the cortex later.

Does distributed sleep help memory in infants?

Parents and caregivers may wonder how often their child should nap during the day and whether having more than one nap makes a difference in their child’s development.

Infant sleep is initially distributed across multiple naps (polyphasic sleep) but by nine months, most infants regularly have just two naps a day (triphasic sleep).

Photo: NICHD. Creative Commons.

The transition to one nap a day (biphasic sleep) typically occurs between 12 and 18 months. The transition to adult-like monophasic sleep (no naps) occurs between three and five years for most children.

Given the presence of multiple naps within a day in infancy, my colleagues and I were interested in whether different naps aid memory in similar ways.

On the one hand, naps have been consistently shown to support memory consolidation, even in early infancy. In this case, naps at any time of day may have significant memory benefits.

On the other hand, sleep physiology has not been compared across distributed naps. The morning nap, which infants “grow out of” first, may not be enriched with the distinct brain waves that support memory. In other words, the morning nap may not have significant benefits for memory.

Missing a morning nap can interfere with babies’ learning

In our study, we assessed memory in nine-month-olds. We used a deferred imitation task, which is commonly used in developmental psychology to assess memory. This task is similar to how parents engage their infants with a new toy.

An experimenter shows the infant an unfamiliar toy and demonstrates a certain set of actions. Then the infant is given another toy, the target toy, and has the opportunity to imitate those actions.

If the infant imitates the actions, this is evidence of their memory for initial demonstration. We also used control procedures to make sure the actions we were looking for were not simply the natural intuition of the infant when engaging with the toy.

Even though they napped in the afternoon, when the infants stayed awake during the morning nap, they forgot more after the afternoon nap than they did when they had had a morning nap.

In our study, 15 infants were presented with four target toys and we measured their immediate recall of the demonstrated actions to find out if they imitated the target actions with the toy. Next, the infants napped during their morning naptime.

After their naps, they were given the toys again to see if they demonstrated memory of the experimenter’s earlier actions by imitating them. To compare the infants’ actions with and without naps, we also carried out the study the week before or the week after the nap study with infants being kept awake during their morning naps.

Distributed sleep allowed infants’ memory to be protected

Infants’ memory was protected when they took a morning nap: They tended to remember just as many items after their morning nap as they did before the nap. However, when infants stayed awake during their morning nap, they forgot some of the items.

The findings on a morning vs afternoon nap

Next, we considered whether staying awake during the morning nap affected infants’ memory consolidation during the afternoon nap. The infants were presented with a new set of toys and then took their regular afternoon nap.

Even though they napped in the afternoon, when the infants stayed awake during the morning nap, they forgot more after the afternoon nap than they did when they had had a morning nap. That is, taking the afternoon nap did not compensate for a missed morning nap.

Photo: ferhat66. Pixabay.

Further research and healthy distributed sleep guidelines for caregivers and practitioners

Our study points to the importance of naps for learning in infants. Memories are protected by naps at this age when learning is vast – from the faces of caregivers to the intricacies of language.

Moreover, later sleep does not compensate for a missed nap. Instead, the effects of a missed nap can be compounded by damaging the function of later sleep.

In our ongoing work, we are manipulating the presence of the afternoon nap to directly compare memory loss when babies are kept awake during the afternoon and during the morning nap.

We are also studying these infants longitudinally to understand how the function of naps changes when the morning nap becomes less essential. By recording brain activity during distributed sleep, we also aim to better understand the relation between memory and brain development.

Promoting sleep health in infancy and childhood is crucial for cognitive development. This is particularly important for families with low socioeconomic status who may lack knowledge about babies’ needs for sleep and resources to provide opportunities for sleep in the middle of the day.

We need to continue our work to understand the function and timing of distributed naps so we can provide guidelines to caregivers and practitioners.

The post The power of distributed sleep: The benefit of multiple naps in infancy appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

These young people may have very different experiences, but children who show resilience almost invariably share at least one fundamental protective factor. Typically, in the background, there are people connected to these children – usually parents and teachers – who are holding it together amid chaos and trauma to buffer children in their care from the dangers that surround them.

For example, over the years, I have seen a lot of effective parenting in emergency shelters. Despite scary situations and uncertainty, many caregivers manage to hold steady, even when they do not know where their family is going to live or how they will feed their children.

Buffering children does not mean shielding them from all stress. But it does mean keeping stress manageable. Children need to learn how to handle stress, setbacks, and failure, as well as what to do when they become overwhelmed. As an analogy, consider the functioning of our immune systems. Research tells us it is unwise to protect immune systems from all exposure to germs, although it is helpful to bolster them with vaccinations.

“Parents have often felt as though they were the first and last line of defense.”

Likewise, children need some exposure to challenges, supported by effective caregivers and teachers who ensure that they are not exposed to overwhelming trauma. All lives have major blows and face many kinds of adversities. Problem-solving skills, social support, and confidence that one can overcome adversity are important for resilience, but they develop best when they grow over time, honed by experiences of overcoming manageable challenges.

Systems and families have protected children

During COVID-19, we have seen impressive examples of family, education, health, and other community systems mobilizing to protect children. Parents, schools, health care, and social services – as well as neighborhood communities – have stepped up to shield and buffer children. They have tried to provide safe spaces to play and learn despite turmoil and unseen dangers. Not all those efforts have been successful, in part because the pandemic was so disruptive. We also discovered profound gaps in our preparedness for this kind of widespread catastrophe. Yet clearly, many systems eventually succeeded in protecting children from at least some of the dangers around them.

Parents carried the burden

Parents, in particular, have often felt as though they were the first and last line of defense. This was particularly true during the early stages of the pandemic, when many schools and child care facilities did not function as they usually did. During this time, a heavier burden of educating and caring for children passed to parents, even though they, too, were often struggling. Parents were expected to keep their children safe, healthy, and learning, even when they were juggling nearly impossible demands of work and family, illness or loss, and worries about paying the rent.

It is remarkable how the resilience of multi-layered systems – such as families and communities – springs into action in times of such stress. The surge in support from these quarters has been impressive during the two-plus years of the pandemic. But systems cannot keep surging capacity indefinitely. It is essential for parents and other protective systems to recharge and replenish their capacity.

If support systems are not maintained and restored, they may not work well when they are needed to take the strain again. The same is true for systems surrounding children. That is why maintaining children’s resilience requires a clear focus on looking after those who carry the greatest load of responsibilities for protecting and nurturing children. Bolster children’s buffers and you will strengthen children’s capacities to withstand blows, recover, and even thrive, in spite of trauma or disaster.

Photo: risingthermals. Creative Commons.

Capacities to cope for long periods

We know from research that many people weather long-lasting, difficult situations. Studies of those who survive prolonged conflicts or natural disasters show that recovery is possible even in situations of severe and chronic adversity, especially when the recovery environment is supportive. People help each other, often relying on cultural and religious practices that provide comfort and concrete supports such as food to those in need.

Although the mobilization of resilience may lag behind the challenges confronting families in unexpected and severe situations of adversity, the complexity and speed of resilience responses can be impressive. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed many striking surges in resilience capacity – from the expansion of intensive care units and globally coordinated vaccine development to individual volunteering and giving.

Such acts of kindness benefit not only recipients but can help the givers feel better, too. I saw this after Hurricane Katrina in the United States. Schools developed programs for children to help their community prepare and plan for future disasters, and taught them to make “go bags” or put together care packages for families. Kind and helpful activities provide children with positive feelings while at the same time countering the sense of helplessness and loss of control that often accompanies experiences of severe adversity.

“Maintaining children’s resilience requires a clear focus on looking after those who carry the greatest load of responsibilities for protecting and nurturing them.”

However, the length and complicated challenges of this pandemic have sorely tested the resilience of systems and individuals supporting children. The pandemic itself may continue, perhaps in a diminished form, for some time. Additionally, lingering consequences may continue to affect families well into the future.

Many parents, teachers, and health care workers already feel worn out, yet they must remain on the front lines of defending and fostering children’s well-being for the long term.

The burden is great among disadvantaged families

The experience of the pandemic has also exposed weaknesses in the supports that protect disadvantaged families. When child care centers and schools were closed or struggling to continue serving children, some better-off families could mitigate the worst effects of the resulting disruptions on their children. They could hire nannies and tutors, team up to create learning pods, and afford private education systems that were more likely to stay open than publicly funded schools.

In contrast, low-income families often struggled with poor digital access and food insecurity as they waited for public systems to swing into action. The pandemic amplified, at least in the United States, effects of long-term underinvestment in child care facilities, health care for children, parental leave, and public school systems.

Support those feeling burned out

Now that we may be starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, there is an important and much-needed debate about how to help children “catch up” in their academic and social skills. But it is also vital to focus on how to support the people and systems that serve as the primary buffers for children in these difficult times.

Many caregivers and educators have run a marathon and they are exhausted. They need our collective support to recharge and carry on the crucial work of protecting children in the present and nurturing their resilience for the future. That support can take many different forms from family, friends, employers, NGOs, and governments, including listening, childcare, organized activities for children, family-oriented celebrations, flex-time, or tax credits. The well-being of children depends on the adaptive capacity of these unsung champions and, in turn, the future resilience of all our societies depends on developing resilience in children, preparing them for the life adversities they will inevitably encounter.

The post Protecting children from the pandemic’s impacts requires that we support their parents appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Start with acknowledging and celebrating the diversity of Latinx families and communities

The past 20 years have seen dramatic shifts in the location of Latinx communities, stretching beyond traditional jurisdictions in California, Texas, and New York into areas that are much less familiar with their needs and cultures. Indeed, the label “Latinx” does not capture the diversity of Latinx-identifying families and individuals born and raised in the United States versus recent and earlier arrivals who hail from different countries of origin and heritages, and who are fluent in different Spanish dialects and indigenous languages. (Latinx is a gender-neutral term used in the United States to refer to Latino/Hispanic individuals of Latin American or Caribbean heritage.)

This diversity can sometimes overwhelm rigid and unfamiliar systems, which can contribute to frustration, confusion, and tensions in receiving communities. Correspondingly, fear and distrust among Latinx populations and between Latinx populations and other groups can escalate. What may actually be misinformation or confusion among Latinx parents can be internalized as failure. In reality, Latinx parents bring with them hope, optimism, a sense of family cohesion, and a strong work ethic, which are key strengths that support children’s success.

Three key strengths: Optimism, work ethic, and family cohesion

It is hard to overstate the optimism that Latinx immigrants have today and have always had when they arrive in the United States. They feel they have had to risk everything, leaving behind family and the life they knew to move to a better life, one filled with hope of economic opportunity and promise for their children’s futures. This optimism carries them through difficult times. Such positivity protects their well-being and mental health and drives success.

Service and public infrastructure such as transportation, internet access, and schools can be extended in ways that capitalize on co-location of community organizations and neighborhoods that parents trust.

Optimism is just one of many strengths Latinx families bring with them, whether they are born in the United States or are recent immigrants. Their capacities include a strong work ethic, with many Latinx parents working long hours and producing high-quality output, rarely missing work or calling in sick, often at the risk of losing earned income and with no mechanism for recourse in case of injury or emergency.

This strong work ethic goes hand in hand with an equally strong commitment to their children, ensuring that they receive proper nutrition and feel safe, and attending to their children’s learning and education. As in all families, Latinx parents balance the competing demands of being a worker and a parent, and ensure that their children get not only resources but also their time.

Family cohesion is the hallmark of adapting and thriving in the United States. Latinx families provide love and support for each other in the form of social and financial capital. The strong family bond can protect them from adversity and provides a personal safety net that helps the family not only survive, but in many cases, thrive. An integral part of the family is the belief that children thrive when raised by two parents—mothers and fathers.

Photo: David Beoulve. Creative Commons.

Fathers’ role is not only to provide financially for their children, but also to be there for them and be involved in day-to-day parenting. Latinx fathers have a strong commitment to their family and their children, and their involvement in their lives matters for the development of children’s basic language and social skills. Fathers and mothers also co-parent and combine resources to ensure that their children have more opportunities than they had. 

Celebrating learning and education

The value placed on education and learning is infused throughout stages of child development, as demonstrated during children’s earliest years. Both Latinx mothers and fathers engage in active storytelling which is sustained through support of formal schooling.

Investments in early education in the United States have yielded high enrollment in programs serving preschool-age Latinx children, and the benefits to Latinx children, including dual language learners, sometimes outpace those of other groups of  children. Families also benefit from the role early education and care play in supporting parenting, access to other resources in the community, and connections to social networks.

The strong Latino parent work ethic goes hand in hand with an equally strong commitment to their children. As in all families, Latinx parents balance the competing demands of being a worker and a parent, and ensure that their children get not only resources but also their time.

Indeed, Latinx fourth and fifth graders’ math and reading achievement has increased over time, as have Latinx high school graduation rates and subsequent enrolment in post-secondary education programs. When researchers visit Latinx homes, parents ask about where and how they can purchase the educational toys used to observe children’s play. It is not unusual for young children to ask their teachers for more books to bring home from school, declaring: “One is for me, and one is for Mom.” Modelling good behavior is a tool parents use to inculcate in their children a love of learning, with many parents “doing homework” with their children. Family members, and sometimes entire communities, come together to participate in and witness schooling milestones, such as graduations.

Educational preparedness for many Latinx children includes fluency in two languages, mastering English and Spanish. Schools that embrace equity-oriented practices – including strategies to facilitate family engagement and family-school partnerships, and extended learning opportunities – have reduced disparities in Latinx students’ school progress compared to peers.

A foundation of good health

Across many metrics of children’s health, Latinx children fare well, notably in low rates of infant mortality. Latinx parents care deeply about the health of their children and the foundation that good health provides for their children’s educational attainment and economic opportunities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Latinx families, like many other families, expressed concern about the social isolation and mental health of their children. They also experienced high rates of economic, food, and housing insecurities, which threatened the well-being of their children.

Yet their abilities to meet the physical and mental health needs of their children are often hindered by structural barriers to medical care, public services, and other resources needed to support children’s well-being. As one example, 12 states, many in the U.S. South, have chosen not to expand Medicaid, a health insurance program for low-income persons. Even with insurance, Latinx families can face a variety of barriers to care, including limited time off from work to obtain medical care, limited access to transportation, and a lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate services in the communities in which they live.

Pandemic challenges

Optimism can wear thin when families are faced with health risks and economic uncertainty over a prolonged period. During the first few months of the pandemic, the mental health of Latinx parents was initially buoyed by their optimism and strong co-parenting support, but high rates of unemployment, especially among Latina parents, reduced household income. Not all eligible Latinx families received pandemic-related government assistance.

Although most Latinx families did their best to keep children engaged in learning activities at home, Latinx children’s learning suffered because they did not receive the support they needed for education transmitted remotely or online. Latinx children did not have consistent access to technology or equipment, such as extra iPads or laptops. In some cases, children missed online testing because digitally accessible equipment, including a smart phone, was shared by an entire household. 

As Latinx parents struggled to cope with extra demands, Latinx teens and young adults were expected to help their younger siblings with learning.

Photo: Jhon David. Unsplash.

Opportunity for policy investment and the price of policy failure

These and other stories speak to Latinx family strengths. How can these strengths of optimism, work ethic, and family cohesion be harnessed – and not undermined – by investments in education, health care, and child care policy?

Latinx children arrive at formal schooling curious and eager to learn. Although Latinx children quickly catch up to their peers in some academic domains, lack of support for their home language and cultural barriers contribute to dashed hopes and disillusionment with educational opportunities. As economic pressures on the family, youth are forced to disengage from the educational system as they face competing demands, including working to financially support their family or sharing in the responsibility of raising younger siblings. This path can lead to lost years of formal education.

Child care providers have difficulty accommodating the complexities of work schedules among some Latinx parents, and early education and care arrangements are not always culturally responsive, lacking support for Spanish-speaking or dual-language parents and children and failing to adequately accommodate children with special needs. The supply of child care slots is low, resulting in fewer options to reconcile work and parenting commitments.

Many Latinx families with children are left out of health insurance because of discrimination against individuals whose immigration status is not regularized. Latina adolescents have some of the highest rates of depression and suicide attempts in the United States. Longer-term consequences are documented in poor cardiovascular health, diabetes, and suboptimal functioning in adulthood.

When family cohesion faces such stressors, how far can the safety net it provides its members be stretched before it snaps? It is hard to know precisely. Low-wage work is deeply problematic, setting tight limits on what parents can do for their children. When a mother works two or three jobs, who cares for her children? When can a mother or father engage with the school if they are both working long hours? When is there time to navigate the health care system?

How can parents ensure that child care is good? If work is unreliable and unstable, with no benefits and few hours required on short notice, children may have to be placed in three or four different child care arrangements. Typically, there is no formal child care on weekends, so low-paid Latinx families are forced into an informal network of supports, some of which are not of very high quality.

How do parents square the circle of wanting to spend loving time with their children and earning enough money to feed their family? One father we know works three jobs, getting home at 11 pm every night. His two-year-old naps until 10:30 pm, then is wakened so she can play with her father for half an hour – but she is tired the next day.

A manifesto for change

It is time for public programs and services to re-envision their engagement with Latinx families and support Latinx children’s paths to success. They must also respect the rights of Latinx individuals: Most young children of immigrants are U.S.-born, thus have rights and privileges equal to all other U.S. citizens such that their parents’ immigration status is not a barrier.

Service and public infrastructure more generally—including transportation, internet access and schools—can also be extended in ways that capitalize on co-location of community organizations and neighborhoods that parents trust. Community schools have proven their worth in, for example, improving access to children’s health care and reducing the administrative burden on hard-pressed parents of accessing other services.

Latinx families bring such strengths – so much energy, skill, and commitment – to raising their children well. A public commitment to policies and practices that harness and align with these strengths can go a long way to recouping returns to investments.

The post Investing in the strengths of Latinx families and children appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Consider fathers’ health behaviors as well as mothers’,
• Assess and treat fathers’ mental health as well as mothers’,
• Treat family stress and attend to the couple relationship, and
• Provide access for fathers to family leave.

Much research focuses on how mothers-to-be influence babies’ health and development before and during pregnancy – touching on mothers’ environments, emotions, and behaviors. Mothers-to-be are often advised to alter their lifestyles accordingly.

Less attention is paid to fathers, but there is sufficient evidence to make a case for practice and policy to change in this regard.

This research review sets out seven ways fathers influence children’s development during pregnancy, providing a useful tool for planners of prenatal services and policies.

1. Epigenetic and genetic changes: Prior health behaviors

• Obesity is associated with epigenetic changes that predict restricted growth in childhood.
• Alcohol affects the sperm epigenome and is a risk factor for alcohol use and alcohol sensitivity in offspring.
• Fathers’ diabetes and fast-food consumption predict earlier births.

2. Epigenetic and genetic changes: Exposure to environmental toxins

• Exposure to workplace welding fumes is linked with higher prevalence of congenital abnormalities (Egyptian study).
• Fathers exposed to pesticides (e.g., nematocide, dibromochloropropane, ethylene dibromide) are more likely to have suboptimal sperm quality.

3. Epigenetic and genetic changes: Early life stress

• Children of fathers who survived the Holocaust and fathers with post-traumatic stress disorder show epigenetic differences, namely increased DNA methylation in a promoter region of the glucocorticoid receptor. These are linked with increased prevalence of psychiatric illness and reduced cortisol levels in the children.
• Studies of mothers have shown links between their exposure to disasters (e.g., natural disasters, terrorist attacks, COVID-19) and outcomes for their children. No such research exists for fathers but it would likely reveal similar links.

4. Neurobiological and hormonal changes

• First-time fathers with a higher prenatal testosterone level report less effective and positive parenting six months after the birth.
• First-time fathers with a higher prenatal oxytocin level endorse a more nurturing parenting philosophy after the child’s birth.

“This research review sets out seven ways fathers influence children’s development during pregnancy, providing a useful tool for planners of antenatal services and policies.”

5. Influences on expectant mothers’ health behaviors

• Alcohol use by an expectant father is linked to higher alcohol use by pregnant mothers (Ukrainian study).
• Expectant mothers engage more in prenatal health actions such as stopping smoking when their male partners do more caregiving (e.g., listening to baby’s heartbeat, purchasing items for baby, attending prenatal classes).

6. Influences on expectant mothers’ mental health

• A higher quality of couple relationship is associated with expectant mothers’ lower distress, which in turn is associated with more positive temperament of the baby (U.S. study).
• More relationship conflict correlates with greater incidences of medically complex births. Much research links prenatal stress in mothers to premature birth and low birth weight.
• Depression in expectant fathers correlates with depression in expectant mothers. Joint mental health symptoms in two parents prenatally predict the same symptoms in the parents 12 months after the birth, which in turn correlate with children’s executive function problems at 7-8 years (Finnish study).

7. Influences on mothers’ hormones

• A couple’s hormonal levels tend to synchronize and follow similar patterns. Lower testosterone levels in both expectant parents predict greater investment by the father in the parenting relationship after the birth.
• When cortisol levels are lower in both expectant parents, there is likely to be less conflict between them before birth and less depression on the part of the father after the birth.
• Hormonal changes in mothers can affect fetal development and children’s long-term social and emotional development.

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According to the World Health Organisation, children will suffer 80% of the illnesses, injuries and deaths attributable to climate change.

“The well-being and even survival of today’s children are at risk, ” according to a paper on the impacts of the climate crisis on children and youth from the Society for Research in Child Development.

What do children suffer?

According to the World Health Organisation, children will suffer 80% of the illnesses, injuries and deaths attributable to climate change. Children are harmed by both sudden climate change events (e.g., floods and fires) and long-term climate changes (e.g., droughts and rising sea levels). Children will experience:

• Heat-related illness
• Exposure to environmental toxins
• Infectious, gastrointestinal and parasitic diseases that spread in warmer temperatures
• Malnutrition
• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (an example: after the floods in Pakistan in 2010, 73% of 10- to 19-year-olds displayed high levels of PTSD)
• Depression and anxiety
• Sleep problems
• Cognitive deficits and learning problems

Past research has shown that children’s reactions to extreme weather events include distress, grief, anger, loss of identity, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, higher rates of suicide, and increased aggression and violence.

All these are direct impacts of climate change. Then there are indirect impacts: food shortages, intergroup conflict, economic dislocation and forced migration. Younger children are impacted when their parents’ well-being is undermined. For example, after hurricanes, levels of domestic violence rise. Children’s education is also jeopardized; flooding and droughts are followed by declines in school attendance. Forced migration is followed by trauma and behaviour problems among children.

Things are worse for children in low- and middle-income countries

Low- and middle-income countries are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, both through their geographical position and because they have less infrastructure and capacity to respond to climate change. Eighty-five percent of the world’s children live in these regions. Climate change is described as the single biggest threat to development throughout the world, undermining the sustainable development goals set for poverty, hunger, health and well-being, education, water and sanitation, peace and justice.

How children should be supported (but are not)

The key to supporting children and young people in such circumstances is to give them agency. The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children have the right to participate in and influence decision-making processes that are relevant to their lives.

Yet this has not happened to any significant extent. There have been few adult-initiated programs to help young people respond to the threats of climate change, and little research in this area. Few resources are available to guide parents and other adults about what do to for children.

In response, perhaps unsurprisingly, young people have taken matters into their own hands. All over the world, theyhave taken action.

As just one example—other than the best known of all, Greta Thunberg—in 2018, 25 young plaintiffs won a case in the Colombian Supreme Court against deforestation in the Amazon on the grounds that it threatened their rights to a healthy environment. Millions of children are now demonstrating all over the world.

These youth activists are showing the psychological value of taking action to address the crisis – they commonly report how taking action has helped them deal with their previously debilitating anxiety, fear and anger, and has built their resilience and hopefulness as well as teaching them many life skills.

What adults must do for child development in the face of climate change

Such action by children and young people cannot absolve adults of responsibility, particularly given that if this generation of leaders fail to take effective action, it will be too late.

Those who support child development globally should focus on the 85% of children in the developing world – those most affected by climate change. However, all children will need to cope with climate change impacts, and with the massive changes involved in the shift to a zero-carbon economy.

Key skills that young people will need in the future include empathy, belief in social justice, adaptability and creativity, negotiation and conflict-resolution, collaboration, and civic engagement.

Developmental psychologists need to ensure that the climate crisis is comprehensively covered in psychology education and training. Funding bodies should prioritise research and support for children around climate change.

Finally, child development scientists should themselves become involved in advocacy and education of decision-makers, colleagues and the public about the magnitude of the threat of climate change to today’s children.

“The climate crisis represents a massive threat to our children’s well-being and survival. As such, it poses an unprecedented challenge to those with responsibility for the well-being of children and youth, and requires us to take on new roles as a matter of urgency,” the paper says.

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Significant maternal health changes in response to a small change in actual days of parental leave taken by fathers suggest days at home are used when it really matters.

Research on parental leave in Sweden shows that when fathers take just a few extra days off during the first months of a child’s life, mothers’ health benefits significantly.

In 2012, Sweden introduced “Double Days” into its parental leave system, allowing fathers to be at home not just for the first 10 days after the birth of a child, but also up to 30 more days during the first year while the mother is still at home. These parental leave days can be taken at any time and in any combination, including as single days off., meaning fathers can be available more often to help at difficult moments. For example, they might help with post-childbirth complications, breastfeeding difficulties, mothers’ medical appointments or simply times when the mother is feeling particularly unhappy or stressed.

This new parental leave arrangement for fathers has had significant impacts on mothers’ physical and mental health. According to a new study:

1. The number of fathers taking more than 10 days off in the first 60 days increased by 50% (from 7.8% to 11.7%). These days of parental leave were taken mostly in the first three months. (The first 180 days saw a 24% increase in the number of men taking extra days, from 24.6% to 30.5%.) These results don’t reflect fathers’ using these days in place of sick leave– the number of sick days taken by fathers didn’t change.
2. Fathers used these extra days of parental leave sparingly – the average was only 1-2 extra days by each father in the first six months.
3. Nonetheless, fathers’ taking such days produced significant health benefits for mothers, and particularly mothers with pre-birth medical conditions.

• Mothers were 14% less likely to have an inpatient or specialist outpatient visit for childbirth related complications (falling from 10.7% to 9.2%). The decrease was mostly in months 4-6.
• Mothers were 11% less likely to be prescribed an antibiotic in the first six months (from 17.3% to 15.4%).
• Mothers were 26% less likely to be prescribed an anti-anxiety drug in the first six months (from 1.2% of mothers to 0.9%). The change was mostly in the first three months.

Such significant health changes in response to such a small change in days of parental leave taken suggest that fathers are staying home on days when it really matters. For example, in the modified parental leave system, fathers are more likely to take at least one day of leave on the same day as the mother has an engagement with the health system, particularly if the mother has a previous medical condition.

The researchers also looked at the impact of grandparents living nearby. Surprisingly, having grandparents nearby was not associated with less use of the additional parental leave by fathers in the first months. However, when no grandparents lived nearby, mothers’ health benefitted more from fathers’ taking extra days of parental leave.

These strong results raise substantial issues for how parental leave is organised and also how health is managed.

Parental leave

Until now the focus has been on fathers taking time off to be alone with the child for a consolidated period – a “sequential” and “lumpy” approach, as the researchers describe it. The aim is to promote father-child bonding, change gender norms and improve maternal labor market outcomes. The new system in Sweden highlights another purpose of parental leave, relating to health of mothers, leading to an important modification in its configuration. (This is not to say that traditional leave taking does not benefit maternal health. In a UK study, for example, mothers reported better health outcomes for themselves when the father took paternity leave just after the birth. In a Swedish study, when fathers took paternity leave, mothers were more likely to breastfeed.)

The study also puts the spotlight on interdependence in families, showing that the expansion of choice for one parent benefits the other one directly. The parental leave debate is dominated by considerations of individual decision-making by fathers, as if they make their choices independently of the family. In this study, the researchers describe the situation quite differently: they look at how “the household decides, on a day-to-day basis, whether the father should work in the labor market or stay at home with the mother and child”.

The researchers recommend further studies to see whether the mother-child relationship improves when fathers take additional parental leave, given that this relationship is influenced by the mother’s physical and mental well-being.

Managing health

The researchers recommend more attention to the environment at home in the management of maternal health, rather than just in the medical system. Mothers spend most of their time at home, after all, and not at medical appointments. They quote Dr Neel Shah, a leading maternal health expert at Harvard Medical School:

“What’s important to understand is that most maternal deaths happen after women have the baby and the fundamental failure is not unsafe medical care but lack of adequate social support…a lot of the risks around childbirth happen after the baby is born during that vulnerable time when you’re trying to care for an infant while also taking care of your household and doing all the things we expect of moms.”

A key aspect of the home environment for a mother with a newborn is the presence of the father. In the light of these health management considerations, the researchers recommend that family leave should be extended beyond parental leave to the illness of any family member.

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Reduced parenting time with fathers after divorce damages emotional security in children. Increased time mitigates negative impacts of conflict.

Reduced parenting time with fathers after divorce undermines children’s emotional security, because they don’t have enough daily interactions to reassure them that they matter to their fathers, finds Professor William Fabricius of Arizona State University, USA, in a paper to be published next year. Conversely, more parenting time with fathers is linked to a better father-child relationship.

Most studies of shared time with parents after divorce use 65%/35% as the cutoff for considering the arrangement to be joint physical custody. But when researchers have looked at what happens when there is more sharing, ranging, for example, from 60%/40% and all the way to 50%/50%, they’ve found that higher levels of sharing are associated with fewer behavioural problems and better social skills in the child’s later life.

High conflict between parents further reduces emotional security for children, introducing a fear of abandonment. Recent evidence from larger samples shows this fear is worst when children spend 25%-35% of their time with their fathers. Fear of abandonment is not as bad when they spend less than 25% of their time with their fathers, and is considerably better when they spend more than 35% and closer to 50%. This finding challenges the idea that reducing time with a parent is a cure for high-conflict situations; more sharing will benefit most children.

Research on father-child relationships among college students

Fabricius examined the father-child relationship in college students from divorced families. The average quality of the child-father relationship increases with the proportion of time spent with the father during childhood, incrementally from 0% to 50%. The same relationship has been found for overnight stays with the father during the first two years of life: the more overnight stays, the stronger the relationship in young adulthood. These findings have been confirmed in other studies of families recruited from the community by Fabricius and other researchers, especially in Europe.

In neither case does mother-child relationship security decrease as childhood time with the father increases. Indeed, in the case of overnight stays, more overnight stays with the father during infancy were associated with a slight improvement in the relationship between the young adult and the mother.

The public health cost of low emotional security

Fabricius draws attention to the public health implications of these findings. An estimated 35% of children of divorce have poorer relationships with their fathers in adulthood than do children from intact families. These poorer relationships are associated with worse behavioral and emotional adjustment and lower school achievement. A poor relationship with parents is also implicated in mental health disorders, major chronic diseases and early mortality. A weakened relationship with a divorced father also means that the father invests less time and money on behalf of the child.

Fabricius’s own most recent research, with a non-college sample, shows that as a predictor of mental health years later, adolescents’ perceptions of how much they mattered to their fathers were more important than their perceptions of how much they mattered to their mothers.

Emotional Security Theory

Fabricius explains these findings through emotional security theory. The central tenet of this theory is that conflict between parents (whether separated or not) can threaten children’s sense that their parents will be able and willing to continue to take care of them, producing fear of abandonment.

Anxiety about abandonment can manifest itself in three ways: distress in response to episodes of conflict; attempts by children to control exposure  to the conflict through things intervening to try to stop the conflict or ingratiating themselves; and negative expectations that the conflict will cause their parents to walk away. A “Fear of Abandonment” scale assesses children responses in these situations, using measures like “I worry that my parents will want to live without me”, “it’s possible that my parents will never want to see me again”, “I worry that I will be left all alone” and “I think that one day I might have to live with a friend or relative”.

Very similar fears are still present in young adults as they look back on parental conflict during their childhood: memories of distress when experiencing parental conflict, feelings of self-blame, and negative expectations that conflict will undermine the parental support they receive during young adulthood.

Father time in high-conflict situations

Research on college students by Fabricius and his team found that more time spent with fathers during childhood mitigated the extent to which the conflict damaged emotional security and exacerbated mental health problems. There was no indication that more parenting time for fathers in high-conflict families resulted in poorer father-child relationships.

In other research with young adults, Fabricius and his team found that the strength of the father-child relationship increased in high-conflict situations as more time was spent with the father, but only up to 25% of the total parental time. After that, more time did not produce more improvement.

On the other hand, fear of abandonment is worst in high-conflict families when children spend between 25% and 35% of their time with their fathers. The same was found to be true for somatic symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, chest pains and nausea. If the child sees the father less than 25% of the time, the fear decreases; and if the child spends more than 35% of the time with the father, up to near 50%, the fear of abandonment decreases even more—all the way down to the level experienced in low-conflict situations.

Emotional security theory helps explains these findings. When time with the father is low, the child loses little if he withdraws completely. Between 25% and 35%, the extent of the potential loss is greater and the perceived risk that it will happen is higher. But with equal parenting, the perceived risk of abandonment is lower.

Another area of research that sheds light on this issue is the impact on child wellbeing of parental relocation after divorce. Relocation to a place more than an hour’s drive from the original family home is associated with long-term harm to children’s emotional security with the parents and a worse reaction to conflict between the parents. Relocation is also linked to more anxiety, depression, aggression, delinquency, involvement in the juvenile justice system, associations with delinquent peers and drug use. This findings hold true whether the child remains in the original family home or moves away from it, offering further evidence that separation from a parent is damaging to the child.

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Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes. Reduced telomere length has been linked to aging and also to disease and exposure to stress, for example, smoking, mental illness, obesity, poor sleep and poverty. As a marker of stress, reduced telomere length may manifest itself long before health consequences are discernible, especially in children.

The researchers used data on 2,420 children from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which is following a cohort of children born in 20 large American cities at the turn of the 21st century. The children gave the saliva samples that were tested for telomere length at age 9.

Colter Mitchell and his team at the University of Michigan, USA, found that children who had lost their fathers tended to have shorter telomeres. The results were visible for all types of father loss, in both girls and boys, and in children of different races and ethnicities and irrespective of when the loss had taken place in the child’s life.

Two findings stand out because they are inconsistent with previous research.

Previous research has found that parents’ separation or divorce has a greater impact on children than the death of a father. But, in this study, a father’s death was associated with the largest reduction in telomere length. The telomeres of children whose father had died were 16% shorter than other children’s, on average, compared to 10% shorter for children whose father was incarcerated and 6% shorter for children whose for parents had separated. This finding may be due to something about the sample, which is urban and disadvantaged, or it may indicate that for some outcomes (e.g., health), the negative consequences of a father’s death are underestimated in studies that rely exclusively on survey questions to measure health and disease, especially in children.

Second, other studies have found that when a father dies, income loss is a significant factor in the effect his death has on his children. In this study, the researchers controlled for income loss and found that it accounted for only 19% of the lower telomere length of children who experienced the death of a father. Perhaps the difference is that the fathers in this sample were more disadvantaged than the fathers in most studies, making the economic impact of losing a father less consequential.

The link between father loss and telomere length reduction was 40% larger for boys than for girls, mainly because of a large correlation between telomere length and boys’ losing their fathers before the age of 5. Other research has found that children who lose their fathers in early childhood are more likely to live with a stepfather, which has been shown to be especially stressful for boys.

The authors also found that the association between father loss and telomere length was 90% larger for children with certain variants of the serotonin transporter, which is known to affect depression and mood. This finding is consistent with previous research that shows that children with the more ‘reactive variants’ of this gene respond more negatively to stressful environments than other children do.

The study shows a clear potential for a biological connection between father loss and later health problems.

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The International Association of Human-Animal Interaction Organizations defines an animal-assisted therapy as a “goal-oriented and structured intervention that intentionally includes or incorporates animals in health, education and human service … for the purpose of therapeutic gains in humans.” The safe and trusting relationship that a child can form with an animal is thought to have therapeutic benefits.

The reviewers found only 24 studies in 15 years (2000-2015) that were rigorous enough to be considered.

• 11 involved horses, 10 involved dogs, one involved guinea pigs and two involved multiple animals (rabbits, cats, farm animals).
• Eight were for children with emotional and behavioral problems, three for children approaching a frightening medical or dental procedure, nine for children with autism spectrum disorder, one for children with ADHD and three for children with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 18 took place outside of a medical setting (e.g., an animal stable, a child centre), four were part of a residential programme and two were delivered in a hospital.

None of the interventions is easily replicable, however, since none provided a detailed and scripted manual.

The results of the trials were mixed, with the strongest evidence emerging around horse therapies to help children with autism (four studies showed positive results) and dog therapies to help traumatised children (three studies showed positive results).

A variety of factors were measured in the studies, and in general, children’s outcomes improved when they received the active animal-assisted intervention compared to similar interventions without the use of animals. But there were inconsistencies. The improvements that were measured included:

• Improvements in behavior, social functioning, conversation, motor skills, and motivation
• Reductions in irritability, hyperactivity, ADHD symptoms, PTSD symptoms, aggression, anxiety, distress and cortisol levels, depression, and autism symptoms.

If these early results continue to hold with further research, this type of therapy may turn out to be quite valuable for children.

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