Abstract
Children who experience well-being are engaging more confidently and positively with their caregiver(s) and peers, which helps them to profit more from available learning opportunities and support current and later life outcomes. The goodness-of-fit theory suggests that children’s well-being might be a result of the interplay between their temperament and the environment. However, there is a lack of studies that examined the association between children’s temperament and well-being in early childhood education and care (ECEC), and whether this association is affected by ECEC process quality. Using a multilevel random coefficient approach, this study examines the association between toddlers’ (N = 1,561) temperament (shyness, emotionality, sociability, and activity) and well-being in Norwegian ECEC and investigates whether process quality moderates this association. Results reveal an association between temperament and well-being. Staff-child conflict moderates the association between shyness and well-being, and between activity and well-being. Moreover, high emotional behavioral support moderates the association between activity and well-being. Extra attention should be paid by the staff to these children’s needs.
Highlights
Children’s social-emotional well-being (“well-being”) promotes children’s current and later developmental and learning outcomes (Mashford-Scott et al, 2012)
Using a multilevel random coefficient modeling approach, we examine the following research questions: (1) Is there an association between children’s temperament and well-being in Norwegian early childhood education and care (ECEC)?, and (2) Does ECEC process quality moderate the association between children’s temperament and well-being in Norwegian ECEC? We expect to find that children who are less shy and emotional and more social and active experience more well-being
Our findings show that children’s temperament is associated with children’s well-being in ECEC and that the level of conflict in the staff-child relationship and a high level of emotional and behavioral support play a role in this association
Summary
Children’s social-emotional well-being (“well-being”) promotes children’s current and later developmental and learning outcomes (Mashford-Scott et al, 2012). The neuroplasticity of the brain causes children to be highly sensitive to the level of support from their environment, especially during their first years of life (Blakemore and Frith, 2005; National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2007). Most of these children (96.3%) spend 41 h or more per week in the ECEC center (Statistics Norway, 2021) This high fulltime attendance rate underlines the importance of studying children’s well-being and its predictors in ECEC. Well-being is a key concept in many (inter)national ECEC quality frameworks and guidelines (Mashford-Scott et al, 2012; Council of the European Union, 2019). ECEC plays a key role in children’s lives by building a foundation for health, wellbeing, higher level competence development, and educational success (Council of the European Union, 2019). Previous studies have shown that high-process-quality ECEC (e.g., high-quality staff-child interactions) supports children’s current and later well-being directly (e.g., Helmerhorst et al, 2014; Melhuish et al, 2015)
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