Children's Requests Research Articles

Ecological momentary assessment of the snacking environments of children from racially/ethnically diverse households

Children consume nearly one-third of their daily energy intake as snacks (i.e., eating occasions that occur between meals); thus there is a growing interest in understanding what snacking occasions look like in the homes of young children. This study makes use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to 1) examine differences in the contextual factors, including location, food preparation style, people present, presence of media devices, and overall atmosphere, between meal and snack occasions; and 2) explore differences in the context of snacking occasions across children's gender and weight status. Data for the current study came from the Family Matters Study, which included 150 families with children aged 5–7 years old (n = 25 from each of the following groups: Black/African American, Hispanic, Hmong, Native American, Somali, White). Parents completed an 8-day EMA observation period, during which they were surveyed after each eating occasion with the study child; questions explored contextual factors including location, food preparation style, people present, presence of media devices, and the overall atmosphere of each eating occasion. Differences between meals and snacks were observed; a smaller percentage of snacks (compared to meals) were prepared by the parent, consisted of only homemade food, and were planned ahead of time, as opposed to being served in response to a child's request. Snacks were more likely than other meals to be eaten on the couch and in the presence of a screen. Furthermore, important differences in snacking context were observed by child gender and weight status. Findings illuminate opportunities to improve children's overall dietary intake via interventions focused on improving the quality of foods served during snacks, as well as the contextual environment in which snacks are eaten.

Factors affecting treatment practices of patent medicine vendors for malaria in under-five children: implications for malaria control in Nigeria.

Patent medicine vendors (PMVs) are the most common source of antimalarial drugs and treatment for majority of Nigerians. The quality of their practice could have implications for malaria control. This study sought to explore the factors influencing the malaria treatment practices of PMVs for under-five children in Akwa Ibom State. A cross-sectional survey using an interviewer-administered questionnaire was conducted among 176 PMVs selected by simple random sampling from two local government areas (LGAs). In addition, four focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted to generate qualitative data. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS version 20 while content analysis was done on the qualitative data. Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACT) was the most frequently recommended antimalarial treatment by PMVs (75.6%) for children as against chloroquine (17%) and Sulphadoxine/Pyrimethamine (2.8%). However, only 39.2% of PMVs recommended the appropriate antimalarial treatment (ACTs at the right dose for age), while 71% recommended referral for severe malaria.Factors found to be associated with appropriate management of malaria from quantitative analysis included Educational qualification, attending malaria training and their knowledge of malaria. The FGDs showed that severity of child's illness, parents/caregivers drug request and perceived ability of the parents/caregiver to afford the drugs influenced PMVs malaria treatment practices. Knowledge of malaria, severity of child's illness and parents' drug request influenced the treatment practices of PMVs. Training PMVs on appropriate malaria management and community health education/sensitization to leverage on the influence of client-demand on ACT use is recommended to improve PMVs treatment practice. This study was conducted using mainly personal funds of the lead author with some support from the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital.

Who Initiates the Help Older Parents Give to Midlife Children.

Older parents continue to help children after these children have been adults for decades. We utilize a typology approach to assess who initiates the help. We ask whether profiles of help initiation are associated with how often older parents help and how they evaluate their helping behaviors. Older parents (N = 241; Mage = 80.12) indicated the extent to which they volunteered to help children and helped per child's request. Parents reported their resources and obligation to help, child problems, frequency, and evaluation (rewards/stresses) of helping. Latent profile analysis reveals four profiles representing parents who are initiators (n = 65), responders (n = 56), initiators/responders (n = 50), and uninvolved (n = 69). Resources, needs, and individual beliefs differentiate profiles. Parents offer the same amount of help regardless of who initiates such help. Parents who are initiators/responders view helping as more rewarding than parents who are initiators and more stressful than uninvolved parents. This study reveals variation in the initiation of older parents' help and refines our understanding of family help in late life. Findings may suggest a parental expectation for children to be competent in adulthood regardless of their resources and willingness to help.

Children's and mothers' cardiovascular reactivity to a standardized laboratory stressor: Unique relations with maternal anxiety and overcontrol.

Research documents bidirectional associations between parental overcontrol (OC) and children's anxiety; OC may place children at risk for anxiety and also may occur in response to children's requests for help. However, to date no studies have examined children's or parents' in-the-moment emotional responses to OC. Using a community sample of mothers and school-age children, we examine the individual and interactive influences of maternal OC, maternal anxiety, children's help-seeking, and children's anxiety in predicting physiological reactivity in response to a stressor faced by children and observed by mothers, predicting that for children of higher anxiety mothers, higher OC will be associated with increases in reactivity (decreases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]), whereas for higher anxiety mothers themselves, engaging in OC will be associated with reductions in physiological reactivity (decreases in heart rate). Multilevel modeling suggested that for children of higher anxiety mothers, greater peak OC is associated with greater reductions in RSA (increases in reactivity) after the onset of OC. In contrast, for higher anxiety mothers themselves, greater peak OC was linked with attenuations in heart rate. Effects held when controlling for children's anxiety and help-seeking, and no pattern of effects was observed with analyses in which children's help-seeking was the predictor or children's anxiety was the moderator, suggesting that in this case, physiological reactivity is uniquely associated with the interaction between maternal OC and anxiety. Among mothers with higher anxiety, OC may serve a regulatory function, reducing physiological reactivity, while exacerbating children's reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record

From Continuity to Contiguity: A Response to the Fraught Temporality of Gender.

This paper examines current psychoanalytic engagements with the use of hormone blockers in transsexual children and the underlying premises concerning our understanding of the child's process of coming into his or her gendered self. Rather than taking sides in the debate, I explore how the "hormones question" becomes entangled in a series of misreadings and displacements through which the child's request could potentially be missed. In examining psychoanalytic conceptualizations of the trans child's agency, autonomy, and future and the relation between the natal body and gender, I ask, how is psychoanalytic discourse implicated in the very dilemmas it attempts to elucidate? Specifically, the essay examines critically the psychoanalytic use of continuity, authenticity, and alignment as implicit ideals, interrogates the focus on mourning as therapeutic horizon, and proposes that we conceive of gender as a good-enough placeholder with the potential to carry us from the ideal of continuity to an ethos of contiguity.

Child-targeted on-pack communications in Belgian supermarkets: associations with nutritional value and type of brand.

Persuasive on-pack marketing strategies, such as colourful images and games, affect children's preferences and requests. The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of these child-directed (i.e. aimed at children) strategies on food packages at a Belgian retailer. Although previous research already demonstrated the frequency of most of these techniques directed at children, this paper extends to food pricing and facing strategies (i.e. the number of items from the same product aligned next to each other in the supermarket shelves) which were unstudied till now. Moreover, the association between the use of these strategies, the products' (un)healthiness and their type of brand (national vs. private) is investigated. The content analysis found that 372 food products contained one or more child-directed marketing strategies on-pack, all these communications were coded; the products could be classified in 15 food categories. On average, 3.9 (Min = 1; Max = 8) food promotion techniques were used per package. Unhealthiness of products was rated according to Food Standards Agency (FSA) Nutrient Profile UK. We found that 89.2% of all products with child-directed strategies were considered to be unhealthy. The presence of marketing strategies was associated with higher product unhealthiness, but did not differ much between types of brand. Overall, these findings suggest that (unhealthy) foods aimed at children typically feature many on-pack persuasive communications, which implies that policy makers should (continue to) monitor this. These findings highlight the need for further research to investigate the impact of on-pack communications on children's consumption.

Classroom teachers’ experiences implementing a movement integration program: Barriers, facilitators, and continuance

This study was designed to qualitatively examine fifteen classroom teachers' experiences in implementing a movement integration (MI) program, TAKE 10!®, using the comprehensive school physical activity program framework. Data were collected through observations, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires. Barriers to MI implementation included time and space constraints, whilst facilitators were gaining knowledge during training and developing competencies through experience. Reasons for program continuance included scheduling MI into weekly routines, children's request for the program, and collaboration among teachers. Suggestions for teachers' professional development related to MI are provided in view of the study's findings.

Endearment and address terms in family life: Children's and parents’ requests in Italian and Swedish dinnertime interaction

The focus of this study is on the use of endearment terms and affective markers (including other address terms, as well as nonverbal calibration) in requests sequences in inter-generational interaction, expanding prior work on requests as social action. This study documents verbal and embodied practices in dinnertime talk (30h of video) deployed by both parents and children in order to get things done. The analyses show ways in which endearment terms were recurrently deployed in request sequences, marking both trouble and social intimacy. Moreover, the data show that endearment terms were exclusively deployed by the parents, but not by their children. The adults and children drew on different repertoires of affective resources: the children deployed an array of nonverbal and nonvocal means to display their affective stances. In addition, the parents resorted to endearment terms, nicknames and diminutives, as lexical devices invoking intimate bonds in a context where social solidarity might be at stake. Finally, while children's requests target an immediate action concerning food and food-related activities rooted in the here and now of the interaction, parental requests can be often analyzed as redressive actions, prompted by the child's (troublesome) behavior.

A path analysis model of factors influencing children's requests for unhealthy foods

Little is known about the complex combination of factors influencing the extent to which children request unhealthy foods from their parents. The aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive model of influencing factors to provide insight into potential methods of reducing these requests. A web panel provider was used to administer a national online survey to a sample of 1302 Australian parent-child dyads (total sample n=2604). Initial univariate analyses identified potential predictors of children's requests for and consumption of unhealthy foods. The identified variables were subsequently incorporated into a path analysis model that included both parents' and children's reports of children's requests for unhealthy foods. The resulting model accounted for a substantial 31% of the variance in parent-reported food request frequency and 27% of the variance in child-reported request frequency. The variable demonstrating the strongest direct association with both parents' and children's reports of request frequency was the frequency of children's current intake of unhealthy foods. Parents' and children's exposure to food advertising and television viewing time were also positively associated with children's unhealthy food requests. The results highlight the need to break the habitual provision of unhealthy foods to avoid a vicious cycle of requests resulting in consumption.

Sources of Motivation for Purchases/Purchase Requests Made by Children and Effects of TV Ads on Buying Products

This study identifies the various sources of motivation for purchases/ purchase requests made by children and kinds of products that children generally buy after watching TV ads. Also, the frequency of buying products/asking parents to buy after watching TV ads was determined. Sample size comprised of 400 children from reputed private schools catering to middle and upper socioeconomic strata. The study is confined to the state of Punjab. Findings revealed that children's purchase decisions or requests to parents are governed by 'real needs', followed by 'peer or social group' and 'TV ads'. Children most often buy or request 'clothes or footwear', followed by 'stationery/books/CDs etc. It is also seen that many times ads do not yield a purchase or purchase request from children.

“But please can I play with the iPad?”: The development of request negotiation practices by a four-year-old child

This paper presents a longitudinal study of a four-year-old child's development of the interactional practices to negotiate requests when immediate granting from the parents was not given. While many studies have focused on the development of requesting abilities by children and some have shed light on their request negotiation practices, little is currently known about how children develop the interactional practices to pursue requests in extended discourse. Using conversation analysis to track a child's request negotiation practices for twelve months, we demonstrate that over time, the child learned to occasion, formulate, and reformulate requests in ways that exhibited increased sensitivity to the recipient and the sequential context as well as to his own entitlement and the request's contingency. The findings contribute to research on child language socialization by highlighting the active role children may play in co-constructing interaction and thus shaping the trajectory of socialization.

Pester power and its consequences: do European children's food purchasing requests relate to diet and weight outcomes?

Children may influence household spending through 'pester power'. The present study examined pestering through parent-child food shopping behaviours in relation to children's diet and weight status. Cross-sectional and prospective analyses drawn from the IDEFICS study, a cohort study of parents and their children. Children's height and weight were measured and their recent diets were reported by parental proxy based on the Children's Eating Habits Questionnaire-FFQ at baseline and 2-year follow-up. Parents also completed questionnaires at both time points about pestering, including whether the child goes grocery shopping with them, asks for items seen on television and is bought requested food items. Participants were recruited from eight European countries for the IDEFICS study (non-nationally representative sample). Study participants were children aged 2-9 years at enrolment and their parents. A total of 13 217 parent-child dyads were included at baseline. Two years later, 7820 of the children were re-examined. Most parents (63 %) at baseline reported 'sometimes' acquiescing to their children's requests to purchase specific foods. Pestering was modestly associated with weight and diet. At baseline, children whose parents 'often' complied consumed more high-sugar and high-fat foods. Children who 'often' asked for items seen on television were likely to become overweight after 2 years (OR=1·31), whereas 'never' asking protected against overweight (OR=0·72). Pestering was modestly related to diet and weight in cross-sectional, but not longitudinal analyses. Asking for items seen on television had the most robust relationships across child outcomes and over time.

Shaping our Kids’ Diets: Home and Neighborhood

ObjectiveFollowing the social‐ecological framework, we aimed to characterize barriers and facilitators that primary caregivers living in a food desert experience when providing foods for their children, and strategies to overcome those barriers.MethodsUsing a purposive sampling design, we identified 15 primary caregivers of young children (< 10 years old) who live in Ward 7, a food desert in Washington DC. Semi‐structured, in‐depth interview guides were used to ask primary caregivers about a typical day, whether they agreed with the statement that they are feeding their children the foods that they would like to feed them, and what made it easier or harder for them to provide the foods they want to provide for the children. A participatory workshop with all respondents sought to identify common barriers and strategies to overcome those barriers. Interviews from all sessions were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed systematically following the social ecological framework (ATLAS.ti version 5).ResultsWe interviewed five mothers and ten grandparents. Common factors that acted as barriers or facilitators included health concerns of the primary caregiver that shape what was available at home to eat; monetary and time budgeting for food acquisition and preparation; child's food preferences and requests on foods; perceptions that kids waste foods if they are not fed what they desire; perception that kids’ appetite is not satisfied by what is offered at school or at home. The support of or conflict with family and friends can either mitigate or exacerbate challenges faced by kids’ preferences and health concerns. At the community level, respondents valued resources provided by organized groups (i.e. food giveaways, church lunches, dinners, and other programs offered by non‐governmental organizations). Results provide some evidence that the themes typically associated with a food desert emerged only among respondents who had access to a car (or to a friends’ or relative's car). For example, these respondents described how distance to supermarkets, external appearance of stores, and internal appearance of products, influenced place and frequency of shopping, and limited the types of foods they would have preferred to offer to their children. Among those who did not have good access to transportation, these themes did not emerge, and their barriers and facilitators related more to money and time budgeting, home and family conflicts, and availability of community resources. Participants expressed the desire to gain more knowledge about nutrition and diet, resources available in the community, and budgeting skills. A small group of respondents was interested in organizing to demand that the one supermarket in the neighborhood provided better food products.ConclusionBarriers and facilitators at the individual level are exacerbated or mitigated by family, social, and neighborhood characteristics. Our results suggest that perceived barriers and identified strategies were influenced by the respondents’ ability to compare and contrast their community environment to other neighborhoods.Support or Funding InformationHoney W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service

Commercial Television Exposure, Fast Food Toy Collecting, and Family Visits to Fast Food Restaurants among Families Living in Rural Communities

To assess the associations between children's exposure to television (TV) networks that aired child-directed advertisements for children's fast food meals with the collection of fast food meal toy premiums and frequency of family visits to those restaurants. One hundred parents of children 3-7years old were recruited from a rural pediatrics clinic during 2011; families receiving Medicaid were oversampled. Parents reported the child's TV viewing habits and family visit frequency to the fast food restaurants participating in child-directed TV marketing at the time, and their child's requests for visits to and the collecting of toy premiums from those restaurants. Logistic regression models assessed adjusted associations between a child's TV viewing with more frequent restaurant visits (≥monthly in this population). Structural equation modeling assessed if child requests or toy collecting mediated that association. Thirty-seven percent of parents reported≥monthly visits to the select fast food restaurants. Among children, 54% requested visits to and 29% collected toys from those restaurants. Greater child commercial TV viewing was significantly associated with more frequent family visits to those fast food restaurants (aOR 2.84 for each 1-unit increase in the child's commercial TV viewing scale, P<.001); toy collecting partially mediated that positive association. Higher exposure among children to commercial TV networks that aired child-directed ads for children's fast food meals was associated with more frequent family visits to those fast food restaurants. Child desire for toy premiums may be a mediating factor.

Increasing Single‐Word Requests to Multiword Requests in Children with Autism and Related Disabilities

Initial language training with children with autism often focuses on the production of single‐word requests (i.e., mands). As a child progresses in treatment, it is desirable to increase the mean length of utterance (MLU) of requests. The present study examined treatment outcomes of behavioral intervention designed to increase the MLU of requests in a larger sample of children with language delays (n = 30). Intervention consisted of prompts and differential reinforcement for lengthier requests, and trials were conducted flexibly throughout the treatment session. A non‐concurrent multiple baseline across participants design was utilized to establish experimental control, and MLU intervention consisted of a baseline and treatment phase for each participant. Nonoverlap of all pairs (NAP) was employed to estimate an effect size. Overall treatment effects were medium to large (average NAP = 0.89; average d = 2.36), and the majority of the sample (70%) demonstrated strong treatment effects. Results suggest that targeted behavioral intervention to increase the length of requests can be effective for children with autism and associated language delays. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

In/directness in Polish children's requests at the dinner table

This paper provides some new insights into the concept of in/directness by analysing Polish children's requests. Based on video-recordings of family interactions, it examines how Polish children request and obtain objects during mealtimes, and considers a number of factors related to their choice of request forms. The paper highlights the central role want statements play in child–adult interactions, the different uses of performative requests in Polish homes, and the impact of recurrent routines on the use of the so called off-record strategies, making them similar to direct requests.The study also makes a contribution to research on children's socialisation. Unlike many previous studies which seem to equate child agency with resistance, it shows how children who are positioned by their parents as equals at the dinner table adopt a more formal language style by using conventionally indirect requests.

Children's Requests for Clarification in Investigative Interviews About Suspected Sexual Abuse

SummaryIn investigative interviews, it is vital that children request clarification when necessary so that crucial legal decisions can take into account the most accurate and detailed information. In the present study, 91 investigative interview transcripts about suspected child sexual abuse were coded to answer these research questions: (i) How often and how do children request clarification in investigative interviews? (ii) What factors (age, alleged abuse frequency, interviewer prompt type) are associated with children's requests? and (iii) How do interviewers respond to clarification requests, and are these interventions associated with relevant responses from children? Children rarely requested clarification, although, as expected, older children made more requests. Most requests were explicit (e.g., What do you mean?) and in response to invitation prompts. Question ‘rephrasing’ was the most common interviewer intervention regardless of child age. Results have implications for interviewing children in various contexts and for advancing our understanding of children's cognitive and communicative development. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Эволюция онлайн-рисков: итоги пятилетней работы линии помощи «Дети онлайн»

The article presents the results of quantitative and qualitative analysis of children's and parents' requests to Helpline "Kids Online". The main reasons for the helpline requests are different problems with the Internet and digital devices usage. 7236 calls and 3117 online-messages have been preceded. The dynamic of requests on main types of online-risks (communication, content, technology usage, con¬sumption, the Internet overuse) for the last five years has been presented. According to the results of this analysis the conclusions about online-risks' frequency of encounters, importance, awareness, vulnerability factors and evolution have been made.

Brazilian parents’ perceptions of children's influence on family food purchases

Purpose – Qualitatively ascertain perceptions of parents regarding their children's influence on family food purchases. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis of the transcripts of 31 semi-structured interviews conducted with parents of students from public and private institutions in Brazil. The public school provided meals supplied by the National School Feeding Program, and discouraged the consumption of foods brought from home. The private school did not receive any governmental subsidies for school feeding, and students were responsible for bringing their own school snacks. Findings – Parents perceived children's influence especially of energy-dense nutrient-poor food purchases. Parents from the public school students, with lower income and educational levels, showed greater concern with quality and frequency with which requested foods were made available to the child. Only the parents from the private school students mentioned perceiving peer influence over their children's requests. Research limitations/implications – Results enabled an overview of the main factors that influence children's purchase requests as perceived by parents. School environment seemed to influence requests, reinforcing the need for strategies similar to those present in the public school to be employed in private schools, where government programs that encourage healthy eating are not in place. Originality/value – Qualitative study conducted with parents of Brazilian school children found that those with lower income and educational level were actually more concerned about their children's eating habits and perceived less peer influence over their children's requests for foods. Initiatives in the public school environment that effectively reduced access to certain kinds of foods in favor of healthier food choices reinforced the school's role as a health promoter for students and also their families.

Validation and randomized control trial of the e-SAID, a computerized paediatric dental patient request form, to intervene in dental anxiety.

A rationale for, and pilot of a children's patient request form developed specifically for dental visits, has been previously reported. The SAID (survey of anxiety and information for dentists) is a questionnaire with three embedded subscales: dental anxiety, coping style and dental neglect. It includes children's requests for emotional support, information and treatment. The main, but not sole, response format is a facial image scale. A randomized control trial of a computer version is now reported. The aims were to validate items in the e-SAID, and to assess it as an intervention in dental anxiety. A total of 168 children aged 10-13, attending for routine dental checks in a community dental clinic, were randomly assigned to intervention (83) or control (85) groups. The intervention group completed the e-SAID, in which the first and last questions measured anxiety; and printed a summary of their responses for the dentist. Control group children completed the same anxiety questions, but with a time-lapse. Means and SD were summarized for the 11 items showing a generally positive skew on the seven point scale. After removing the two-item dental neglect subscale, the anxiety and coping subscales were shown to be relatively independent (r = 0.14) and factorially pure. The intervention group mean anxiety score decreased following completion of the e-SAID, while the control group mean anxiety score increased with a small significant interaction effect; however, much of the change occurred in the positive-affect end of the scale. Two problems are discussed: defining anxiety as a bipolar score; and some children being so keen to be assigned to the intervention group that they circumvented the computer allocation process. Children wanted to actively engage in discussion of their dental treatment. The e-SAID was an effective tool for that, regardless of initial low anxiety levels.