Toddlers’ Social-Emotional Well-Being in Early Childhood Education and Care: The Role of Child Temperament and Process Quality

Abstract

There is an increasing awareness that children’s well-being in early childhood education and care (ECEC) should be promoted as soon as possible. Experiencing high levels of well-being forms the foundation for children’s current and future learning and developmental outcomes. Multiple theories argue that children’s development and well-being result from the interplay between children’s characteristics and their environment. However, there is limited research on toddlers’ well-being in ECEC and what role their temperament and the ECEC environment have in supporting or challenging their well-being in ECEC. In this thesis, I aimed to obtain further insight in 1- to 3-year-olds’ social-emotional wellbeing in Norwegian ECEC. I conducted three studies that relied on samples of 567 to 1,561 children from the larger Thrive by 3 study, which is a cluster randomized controlled trial. In the first study, I conducted a psychometric study to validate an existing instrument called the Leiden Inventory for the Child’s Well-Being in Daycare (LICW-D). The findings showed a marginally acceptable fit for the hypothesized one-factor model. In addition, I found a satisfactory concurrent validity with other instruments that measured children’s development, which were expected to correlate with their well-being, namely problem behavior (Child Behavior Checklist Techer Report Form for Ages 1.5–5 Years; CBCL-TRF/1.5–5) and temperament (Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire short form; ECBQ short form). Factorial invariance across gender was confirmed. In the second study, I conducted multilevel analyses to examine the association between toddlers’ temperament (i.e., activity, emotionality, sociability, shyness) and well-being in ECEC. I also wanted to investigate if ECEC process quality (i.e., emotional and behavioral support, chaos in the group, conflict and closeness in the staff–child relationship) affected the potential associations between children’s temperament and well-being. Results showed that children who were more shy or emotional showed less well-being, and children who were more social showed more well-being. There was no association between children’s activity level and well-being. In addition, I found that process quality affected the association between children’s temperament and well-being in different ways. Children who were shyer showed less well-being when they experienced low or high conflict with a professional caregiver. Active children showed high levels of well-being, even though the conflict level was high between them and the professional caregiver, and when the emotional and behavioral support was high. Children who were less active showed less well-being when there was high emotional and behavioral support. In the third study, I conducted multilevel analyses to examine the longitudinal association between toddlers’ early shyness and well-being during the first year in ECEC. I found that children who were shyer during their starting period in ECEC showed less well-being by the end of their first year in ECEC. This thesis contributes to existing literature by providing a starting point for further developing the LICW-D. In addition, this thesis shows that toddlers’ well-being in ECEC can result from the interplay between children’s temperament and the staff–child relationship. Children have different types of temperament, and therefore, they might need different types of support from the professional caregivers to thrive in ECEC. Future research should focus on, for example, to what extent professional caregivers can adapt their behavior in accordance with children’s needs and temperament. Children should be followed over a longer period than was possible in this thesis to obtain further insight in the interplay between children’s temperament and the staff–child relationship. In addition, the role of professional caregivers’ characteristics should be studied more in depth.