Children in Viking-age Worlds: Attempts at Narrating Past Lives

New Horizons for the Journal: Familiar Landscapes in Child Protection

This article presents research on spiritual experience in childhood and aims to illustrate the foundational effects of such experience on adult lives, using the qualitative data of several testimonies. The latter highlight that researchers in spirituality need to pay more attention to what is happening at a spiritual level in childhood and to the hermeneutical lens it provides for interpreting the lives of adults, including themselves, who once were children. They will also illustrate the role religious socialisation plays in spiritual experiences in childhood. The stories are explained in terms of the spirituality framework of the foundational desire for authenticity in the subjectivity of the child interacting with the child’s lived historical situation and how this interaction continues to play out in the life of the adult. They are evidence of the self-implicating character of research in spirituality as the researcher was also once This article presents research on spiritual experience in childhood and aims to illustrate the foundational effects of such experience on adult lives, using the qualitative data of several testimonies. The latter highlight that researchers in spirituality need to pay more attention to what is happening at a spiritual level in childhood and to the hermeneutical lens it provides for interpreting the livesof adults, including themselves, who once were children. They will also illustrate the role religious socialisation plays in spiritual experiences in childhood. The stories are explained in terms of the spirituality framework of the foundational desire for authenticity in the subjectivity of the child interacting with the child’s lived historical situation and how this interaction continues to play out in the life of theadult. They are evidence of the self-implicating character of research in spirituality as the researcher was also once a child. The researcher regards authentic subjectivity as a form of mystagogical method, a method about which Kees Waaijman has written eloquently.&nbsp

Children experience a wide range of literacy practices in their homes and communities, yet these are not generally reflected in early childhood settings. This article reports on research findings which indicate that while children's home and community literacy experiences and texts are increasingly digital and connected to popular media culture, experiences and texts in educational settings are predominantly book-based and generally exclude popular media culture. This practice marginalises children whose literacy practices at home are predominantly with television, videos, computers, comics and magazines rather than with ‘quality’ children's books. Concerns regarding the role of popular media culture in children's lives are critically examined and responses explored. Examples from research that illustrates ways of including popular culture in early childhood settings to enhance literacy learning opportunities for children from diverse backgrounds are also included.

Scholars, the general public, and special collections libraries are increasingly aware of the importance of visual images in examining the past. With the proliferation of sophisticated digitization technologies, researchers now have the opportunity to "see" images in new ways. No longer considered secondary to text and used merely to illustrate the written word, visual materials are taking their rightful place as primary evidence that document the past and influences our understanding of the present. The Library Company of Philadelphia supports this continuing focus on the historical importance of visual culture.

Between Two Worlds: Chinese Immigrant Children and the Production of Knowledge in the Era of Chinese Exclusion

Much has been written about the aetiological role of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in the development of chronic adult physical and emotional health problems but current screening methods utilising questionnaires and formal interviewing often fail to show consensus across populations and surveys. This paper proposes that hypnotic regression might provide an alternative approach to ACE screening through its facility in revealing unsuspected and seemingly minor ACEs, which nevertheless can go on to have long term implications for individuals’ adult health. In this study seven female participants with intractable overweight volunteered to participate in a series of hypnosis sessions designed to explore for possible covert childhood or early adulthood traumatic experiences which might have contributed towards their adult obesity problems. During their hypnosis sessions all participants were seemingly able to recall and to recount, narratives of long-forgotten but intensely painful childhood experiences, traumas and family disharmony, which appeared to have provoked life-changing decisions regarding their weight, body image or eating habits, and which may then have contributed to their developing refractory obesity later in their adult life. This study suggests that current decisions limiting the range of what constitutes ACEs may account for the differing results of previous ACEs surveys and that hypnosis might prove to be a useful tool in screening for otherwise unrecognised ACEs, thus helping to improve the specificity and sensitivity of current ACE screening programmes.

This chapter explores the impact of and the potential for adult learning through engagement with popular culture. Considering that we live in a ‘convergence culture’ (Jenkins in Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York University Press, New York, 2006), where popular cultural products weave across multiple platforms (television, movies, books, websites, social media, etc.) and become major factors in adult lives, it is imperative that the field of adult and lifelong education recognise and understand the learning that happens in these everyday spaces of learning. After an overview of how popular culture operates as an arena of education and a site for adult learning, I review the most recent empirical and theoretical literature within adult education which has focused on adult learning and popular culture and add selected studies from other disciplines that may be significant to the field. I conclude with a discussion of the current and future research trends, focusing on the intersection of popular culture, adult learning/learners, and adult education.

Childhood experiences either adverse (ACE) or benevolent (BCE) can indirectly impact sleep quality in adult life, which in turn are modulated by the interplay of a variety of factors such as depression, anxiety, resilience and mental health problems. A cross-sectional observational study was conducted across the UK and the Middle Eastern countries during the COVID-pandemic on 405 participants. An online survey used a combination of questionnaires to assess ACE and BCEs. The following tools were then used to assess the contribution of resilience, stress, depression and anxiety respectively: Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) and General Anxiety Disorder-2 (GAD-2) scale on childhood experiences. The extent of sleep disturbances experienced over a period of seven days was assessed using the PROMIS Sleep Disturbance Short-Form Tool. A serial-parallel mediation model was used to evaluate the impact of the mediators on childhood experiences and sleep quality. Over 50% of the cohort were from Middle Eastern countries. Four or more BCEs were experienced by 94.3% of the cohort. In contrast, 67.9% of participants experienced at least one ACE before the age of 18 years, with moderate levels of stress, mild depression and anxiety were reported in 3.7%, 13% and 20% of participants respectively. Whilst 25.4% of participants reported having had four or more ACEs, with higher reports in the middle easter countries (32%). ACEs were found to correlate with sleep disturbance whilst BCEs showed an inverse correlation. The relationship between ACE and sleep disturbances was shown to be mediated by stress, and anxiety, but not by resilience or depression. Resilience and stress, and resilience and anxiety serially mediated the interaction between ACE and sleep disturbance. With regards to BCE, an inverse association with sleep disturbance was recorded with similar mediators of stress and anxiety observed. This study confirms the negative effects of ACEs, and the positive effects of BCEs on sleep in adulthood which are both mediated predominantly by psychological resilience, anxiety and stress. Strategies aimed at improving psychological resilience as well as addressing stress and anxiety may help improve sleep quality.

Cars have become increasingly significant features in the lives of many children and adults in the UK and elsewhere. Whilst there is a growing body of research considering how adults experience automobility, that is the increasingly central role of cars within societies, there has been little equivalent research exploring children's perspectives. Drawing upon a variety of methods including personal diaries, photographs, in‐depth interviews and surveys amongst schools within Buckinghamshire and North London, the paper contributes to filling this gap in existing research through exploring how cars are not only journey spaces for children, but are also sites for play, relaxation, homework, companionship, technology and the consumption of commodities. Using a Foucauldian analysis of power, insights into wider familial processes relating to mobility are provided by exploring how cars are sites of conflicting power relations between parents and children. The paper also explores how children's everyday experiences of cars were framed by wider sets of power relations, including car corporations which design and manufacture these spaces, and the role of capital which commodifies everyday activities in cars. In doing so, the paper challenges existing research on automobility for only focusing upon adults' experiences of cars and begins to theorise a more inclusive account of automobility which incorporates children and young people.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and poor quality of sleep negatively impacts health-related quality of life in adults, but few studies have evaluated the association between sleep disturbance (eg, OSA, inadequate sleep) and health-related quality of life domains (eg, family relations, life satisfaction) in children. Children ages 8-17 years referred to a sleep center for routine polysomnography from April 2022 to August 2022 were approached to participate in the study, and children visiting the department of pediatrics for their wellness visit were recruited for comparisons. Statistical analysis was conducted using R 3.6.0. Ninety-nine children were recruited from the sleep clinic, and 23 children were recruited from the primary care clinic. Of these children, 62 were diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (31 mild, 12 moderate, 19 severe), and 37 did not meet criteria for a diagnosis. Health-related quality of life domains did not differ across OSA severity levels. Children in general had lower life satisfaction and higher physical stress experience compared to children visiting for their wellness examination (well-child visitors, P = .05 and P = .005, respectively). Children with severe OSA had significantly lower life satisfaction and significantly higher physical stress experience when compared with well-child visitors (P = .008 and P = .009, respectively). Correlation analysis showed that N3 (deep) sleep was positively associated with family relations and life satisfaction, while it was negatively associated with anger. Based on caregiver response, N3 sleep is positively associated with family relations and life satisfaction and negatively associated with anger. Severe OSA is associated with lower life satisfaction and higher physical stress experience. Bhushan B, Zee PC, Grandner MA, etal. Associations of deep sleep and obstructive sleep apnea with family relationships, life satisfaction, and physical stress experience in children: a caregiver perspective. J Clin Sleep Med. 2023;19(12):2087-2095.

A new retrospective interview assessment of childhood psychological abuse, an extension to the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse (CECA) instrument, is described in a companion article (Moran, Bifulco, Ball, Jacobs, & Benaim, 2002). The purpose of the present article is to examine the relationship of childhood psychological abuse to other adverse childhood experiences and to major depression and suicidal behavior in adult life. Childhood experience and lifetime disorder were assessed retrospectively in a high-risk, community series of London women (n = 204). Psychological abuse from parents was examined in relation to seven other parental behaviors (neglect, antipathy, role reversal, discipline, supervision, physical abuse, and sexual abuse). Psychological abuse was significantly related to all seven behaviors. The highest associations found were to antipathy (gamma = .76), neglect (.73), and sexual abuse (.72). Factor analysis showed the existence of two factors reflecting care and control, with psychological abuse associated with both factors. Childhood psychological abuse was highly related to chronic or recurrent adult depression, with a "dose-response" evident for severity of abuse. The rates ranged from 83% for "marked" to 55% for "mild" abuse and 37% for "little/no" psychological abuse (p < .002). Psychological abuse was also related to lifetime suicidal behavior but here any level of abuse from marked to mild had similar rates (36% overall vs. 18% with no psychological abuse, p < .04). There was no evidence of specificity of childhood experience to adult depression; nearly all types of childhood adversity examined were significantly related. An analysis using an index of multiple abuse, including psychological abuse, showed a clear dose-response relationship to disorder. Somewhat fewer forms of maltreatment were related to suicidal behavior, but again multiples showed a clear dose-response effect.

Despite efforts to use behavior modification interventions for male perpetrators, intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a significant problem in some male-female relationships. Childhood exposure to traumatic violent experiences, especially when untreated, can influence adult behaviors. Little is known about these possible factors in the lives of male perpetrators of IPV and if they influence their violent behavior against female intimate partners. This study's aim was to explore the life perspective of men who have been violent with their female intimate partners using Gadamer's hermeneutic phenomenology. Nine men with a history of female IPV were interviewed twice over a 5-month period. Interview content focused on their experiences in childhood and adult lives. Four themes emerged from the qualitative interviews: (a) childhood and family issues, (b) school and mental health issues, (c) substance abuse and (d) legal issues. Traumatic violent experiences in childhood, such as physical and sexual abuse, frequently led to school problems, misuse of substances, and arrests for a spectrum of crimes. These results highlight the importance of identifying traumatic violent exposures through a brief two-question screen of all children in primary care. Implications for individualized mental health treatment of male perpetrators and recommendations for further research are addressed.

It is known that the negative life events experienced in childhood are related to depressive disorder and anxiety disorders in adult life. Adult separation anxiety is a relatively new diagnosis classified under the title of anxiety disorders in DSM-5. The aim of this study is to investigate the possible relationship between adult separation anxiety and traumatic experiences in childhood since childhood trauma has been associated with many anxiety disorders. The study included 119 female and 113 male participants. Only individuals aged 20 years and older and who do not have a psychiatric illness history and mental limitations were included in the study. Sociodemographic Data Form, Separation Anxiety Symptom Inventory (SASI), Adult Separation Anxiety Questionnaire (ASAQ), and Childhood Trauma Scale (CTS) were given to the participants. The data were analyzed by using Independent Sample t Test, Multi-directional Variance Analysis and Tukey Test, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Chi-Square tests. A significant positive correlation was found between total score of ASAQ and Emotional Abuse, Emotional Neglect, Sexual Abuse, CTS total score. The presence of traumatic experiences in childhood was found to be associated with adult separation anxiety. However, more studies on this subject and follow-up studies with larger samples are needed.

Introduction The occurrence of traumatic experiences in childhood can lead to a disruption in the development of secure internal representations, with a negative impact on self-esteem [1]. In addition, child victimisation may compromise their emotional regulation skills [2] and it has been shown that individuals with lower self-esteem have less emotional regulation skills [3]. Studies with adults showed that those who suffered several types of abuse during childhood tend to have worse interpersonal relationships [4]. This research has the main goals, to identify the relationship between the impact of childhood abuse on adult self-esteem and emotional regulation, and the relationship between self-esteem and emotional regulation. This is the first study in a Portuguese sample that integrates those variables. Materials and methods The study design is descriptive, observational, and cross-sectional. The sample was composed of 96 Portuguese adults (over 18 years old) (M = 27.95 years, SD = 11.60). The participants answered online to a sociodemographic questionnaire, Portuguese versions of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) [5], the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) [6], and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) [7]. The link to the study was disclosed by e-mail and in social networks. The study was conducted in accordance with all the ethical principles. Results We found significant statistical positive correlations between the total score of the CTQ and the total score of the DERS (r = 0.422, p<.001) and the sub-scales of DERS: the not acceptance of emotional responses (r = 0.311, p=.002), difficulties engaging in goal-directed behaviour (r = 0.243, p=.017), impulse control difficulties (r = 0.431, p<.001)), limited access to emotion regulation strategies (r = 0.465, p<.001), and lack of emotional clarity (r = 0.209, p=.041). Furthermore, we observed statistical negative correlations between the total score of RSES and the total score of the CTQ (r=–0.319, p=.002), the total score of the DERS (r=–0.561, p<.001) and the sub-scales of DERS: the not acceptance of emotional responses (r=–0.413, p<.001), difficulties engaging in goal-directed behaviour (r=–0.336, p=.001), impulse control difficulties (r=–0.373, p<.001), limited access to emotion regulation strategies (r=–0.508, p<.001), and lack of emotional clarity (r = −0.542, p<.001). Discussion and conclusions In our study, traumatic experiences in childhood were associated with emotional regulation difficulties in adults, which is corroborated by other studies [2]. Additionally, we found that individuals who were victimised in childhood tend to have a perception of lower self-esteem in adult life. The relationship between child abuse and self-esteem and also between child abuse and the emotional regulation difficulties proves the need to develop psychological intervention aiming to enhance the positive self-esteem and the adaptative emotional skills in adulthood. This research highlights the importance of developing intervention programs in victimised children, to reduce the impact of victimisation on self-esteem and emotional regulation.

There are relatively few studies examining the parental style, childhood trauma, and paranormal experiences/beliefs; therefore, the aim of this study is to measure the dominant parental style of those who have experienced paranormal events and their correlation with negative events in childhood and resilience. Four questionnaires were administered to 644 participants. The results showed high frequency of experiences such as sense of presence, premonitory dreams, telepathy, mystical experiences, apparitions, and out-of-body experiences, among others. The results confirmed three hypotheses that predict a positive and significant correlation between the paranormal experiences in adult life and negative experiences in childhood, such as abuse and neglect. One possible interpretation is that "flexible" parental style is the more permissive ones (greater openness and sensitivity to capture alternative realities), in contrast to "rigid" parental style (whose perspectives generate restrictions to capitalize on the unconventional experiences of their children).