̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Claire Hughes

It takes parents a year to ‘tune in’ to their child’s feelings about starting school

fpjl2 — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 07:00:42 +0000

Findings from a major Cambridge-led study inspired psychologists to co-produce a picture book that helps parents develop a deeper understanding of how their child is coping with the first year of school.

Lockdown wellbeing: children who spent more time in nature fared best

jg533 — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 05:01:31 +0000

A study has found that children who increased their connection to nature during the first COVID-19 lockdown were likely to have lower levels of behavioural and emotional problems, compared to those whose connection to nature stayed the same or decreased - regardless of their socio-economic status.

̽��ֱ��study, by researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the ̽��ֱ�� of Sussex, also found that children from affluent families tended to have increased their connection to nature during the pandemic more than their less affluent peers.

Nearly two thirds of parents reported a change in their child’s connection to nature during lockdown, while a third of children whose connection to nature decreased displayed increased problems of wellbeing - either through ‘acting out’ or by increased sadness or anxiety.

̽��ֱ��results strengthen the case for nature as a low-cost method of mental health support for children, and suggest that more effort should be made to support children in connecting with nature - both at home and at school.

̽��ֱ��researchers’ suggestions for achieving this include: reducing the number of structured extracurricular activities for children to allow for more time outside, provision of gardening projects in schools, and funding for schools, particularly in disadvantaged areas, to implement nature-based learning programmes.

̽��ֱ��study, published today in the journal People and Nature, also offers important guidance in relation to potential future restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We know that access to and engagement with nature is associated with wide-ranging benefits in children and adults, including lowering levels of anxiety and depression, and reducing stress,” said Samantha Friedman, a researcher in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Centre for Family Research, first author of the study.

She added: “ ̽��ֱ��COVID-19 lockdowns meant that children no longer had their normal school activities, routines and social interactions. ̽��ֱ��removal of these barriers gave us a novel context to look at how changes in connection with nature affected mental health.

“Connecting with nature may have helped buffer some UK children against the effects of the lockdown, but we found that children from less affluent families were less likely to have increased their connection to nature during that time.”

An increased connection to nature was reflected in reports of children spending time gardening, playing in the garden or doing physical activities outdoors. This was commonly linked to having more time available for these activities during lockdown. Conversely, according to parents, a decreased connection to nature was explained by an inability to access some natural spaces due to travel restrictions in place at the time.

“Connecting to nature may be an effective way of supporting children’s wellbeing, particularly as children return to normal routines, such as school and extracurricular activities,” said Dr Elian Fink, a Lecturer in Psychology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Sussex who was also involved in the study.

She added: “Our findings could be helpful in redesigning lockdown rules should the UK need to return to these conditions in the future, and particularly to countries whose lockdown restrictions prevented children from accessing nature at all.

“Extending the amount of time that children can access nature, or extending the distance that children could be allowed to travel to access nature, could have a beneficial impact on their mental health.”

̽��ֱ��study used an online survey to collect responses from 376 families in the UK, with children between three and seven years old, between April and July 2020. Over half of these families reported that their child’s connection to nature increased during the first COVID-19 lockdown. ̽��ֱ��remaining parents whose children’s connection to nature decreased or stayed the same during this period also reported that their children were experiencing greater wellbeing problems.

A widely-used, gold standard questionnaire was used as a measure of each child’s mental health - assessing emotional problems such as unhappiness, worrying, anxiety and depression; and behavioural problems such as anger and hyperactivity.

“Mental health problems can manifest in different ways in different children. We found that a greater connection with nature was associated with reductions in both emotional and behavioural problems,” said Fink.

She added: “In reality the contrasting experiences of access to nature between different socio-economic groups may be even starker than our study found because respondents to our online study were largely drawn from more affluent societal groups.”

Parents with children between three and seven years old responded to the study survey with reference to one particular child. ̽��ֱ��researchers focused on this age group because they were likely to experience a lot of disruption due to the pandemic, and also have less understanding of what was happening.

“Our study revealed the wide range of ways that parents can help children get more connected to nature. This might be a bit daunting to some, but it doesn’t have to be camping in the woods and foraging for food – it really can be as simple as going for a walk near your house or sitting outside for ten minutes a day,” said Friedman.

This research was funded by Newnham College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Reference

Friedman, S et al: ‘Understanding changes to children’s connection to nature during the Covid-19 pandemic and implications for child well-being.’ People and Nature, Oct 2021. DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10270

Children from less affluent backgrounds are likely to have found COVID-19 lockdowns more challenging to their mental health because they experienced a lower connection with nature than their wealthier peers, a new study suggests.

Children from less affluent families were less likely to have increased their connection to nature during lockdown

Samantha Friedman

Ben Wicks on Unsplash

Children outdoors in muddy wellies

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Set up for life

cjb250 — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 08:13:14 +0000

We’re used to the idea that as adults we have some control over our destiny: what we eat and drink and how much we exercise can affect our health. But the risks of heart disease and diabetes can be programmed much earlier – even before we are born.

Socio-economic status predicts UK boys’ development of essential thinking skills

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jul 2020 10:57:05 +0000

̽��ֱ��findings emerged from an ongoing project which is exploring contrasts in the development of these skills in Eastern and Western societies and their relationship to academic achievement. Executive functions are cognitive skills that help us to meet goals – such as our ability to ignore distractions or switch between tasks – and they significantly affect children’s performance at school.

Across two linked studies, researchers found that the socio-economic background of British boys is directly connected to these skills. Those from wealthier families typically performed better in tests of their executive functions, while those from less-affluent backgrounds did worse.

̽��ֱ��connection was far less direct for British girls, however – and absent altogether among boys or girls from mainland China and Hong Kong, who, despite being generally less affluent than their British peers, consistently outperformed them in the tests.

These results imply that specific cultural factors in children’s lives that shape the acquisition of executive functions, also influence socio-economic gaps in academic outcomes. It is not clear what these cultural ‘drivers’ are, but they may include differences in curriculum, parenting, or attitudes to education.

̽��ֱ��research was by a team of academics from the Faculty of Education and the Centre for Family Research, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Dr Michelle Ellefson, Reader in Cognitive Science at the Faculty of Education, said: “Based on other research, we might have anticipated a direct link between socio-economic status and executive functions; in fact, this existed only for British boys. Pretty much any test pupils do at school requires executive functions, so if we want to reduce the achievement gap between children from different backgrounds, it’s important that we understand the mechanisms behind that relationship.”

Claire Hughes, Professor of Developmental Psychology in the Centre for Family Research, said: “There is concern in the UK that among children from less-advantaged backgrounds, boys in particular often under-perform academically, and the possibility has been raised in some research that features of their home environment play a role in this. What is interesting here is that we saw no relationship between socio-economic status and executive functions for boys in Hong Kong and China. We need to investigate why that might be the case.”

̽��ֱ��research was part of the Family Thinking Skills project, which is exploring links between executive functions, school attainment and cultural differences in Britain and Hong Kong by comparing data from children and parents in both countries. Executive functions are mediated by the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which develops into our mid-20s, and this means that they are likely to be shaped in part by cultural influences like upbringing and environment.

̽��ֱ��latest pair of studies looked at whether socio-economic status, which is known to influence children’s performance at school, does so because it impacts on their executive functions, or has an effect independent of cognitive skills. They also investigated how consistent the relationship is across genders. “Very little research has looked at this in Asia, and big differences with the UK might point to cultural differences driving attainment,” Ellefson said.

Initially, the researchers used data from 835 children aged 9 to 16 living in Hong Kong and the UK. ̽��ֱ��participants completed computer-based thinking games to test their executive functions, and various mathematical tests to assess numeracy. Data about socio-economic status was also provided by their parents and through a survey.

Because children in Hong Kong are highly adept with computers from an extremely young age, which might distort the results in the thinking skills tests, a second study was undertaken with 453 children in Shandong, China, led by PhD researcher Chengyi Xu. This deliberately targeted children whose use computers much less.

Overall, British students performed significantly worse in the numeracy tests, and their executive functions were about two years behind the level of their Chinese peers, even though British children tended to be from wealthier backgrounds. Within countries, there was little difference between girls’ and boys’ average test scores, although girls displayed slightly higher cognitive flexibility.

̽��ֱ��children’s levels of executive function and socio-economic status were both shown to affect their numeracy scores, but in most cases they did so independently of each other. ̽��ֱ��exception was British boys, for whom socio-economic status directly predicts executive functions, which in turn affects their numeracy.

̽��ֱ��researchers also measured general cognitive skills, beyond executive functions alone. Here, they found that both boys and girls from wealthier backgrounds in the UK tend to have better general cognitive skills than those from less-affluent families, whereas in China and Hong Kong, there was no relationship to socio-economic status.

̽��ֱ��data from Shandong also confirmed that computer usage had no effect on the acquisition of executive functions.

̽��ֱ��results strongly suggest that cultural distinctions have shaped a gulf between the thinking skills of British and Asian children, with consequences for their relative attainment. More research is needed to establish what these are, but the nature of the school curriculum, teaching styles, parental expectations, or social attitudes to education, may be some of the factors involved.

In addition, the close link between socio-economic background and thinking skills for British boys in particular suggests that understanding more about these cultural drivers may help to narrow the attainment gap within the UK. “A clearer picture of why differences exist in the development of executive functions between children in Britain and Hong Kong would potentially help to inform interventions to reduce that gap,” Hughes said.

Both studies are published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

A comparison of children in Hong Kong, mainland China and the UK has found that British boys’ development of key thinking skills, known as ‘executive functions’, is unusually reliant on their socio-economic status.

Pretty much any test pupils do at school requires executive functions, so if we want to reduce the achievement gap between children from different backgrounds, it’s important that we understand the mechanisms behind that relationship.

Michelle Ellefson

Robin Stott

Five lads walk home from school through Myton Fields, Warwick

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‘Terrible twos’ not inevitable: with engaged parenting, happy babies can become happy toddlers

jg533 — Wed, 06 May 2020 07:47:18 +0000

̽��ֱ��flexible method of parenting, known as ‘autonomy support’, places emphasis on the child taking the lead. As the child engages in tasks, parents should watch and adjust how they respond according to how the child is managing, say the researchers. They acknowledge that this method of helping the child to be in control is not necessarily easy.

“It’s not about doing everything for your child, or directing their actions. It’s more of a to-and-fro between parent and child. Parents who do best at this can sit back and watch when they see their child succeeding with something, but increase support or adapt the task when they see the child struggling,” said Professor Claire Hughes, Deputy Director of the Centre for Family Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and joint first author of the study with Dr Rory Devine at the ̽��ֱ�� of Birmingham’s School of Psychology.

̽��ֱ��study, published in the journal Developmental Science, found a link between parental autonomy support in 14-month-old children, and reduced behavioural problems ten months later. But this link only applied to children who had been rated as ‘easy babies’- those in a generally happy mood, who adapted easily to new experiences and quickly established routines. Children who demonstrated high levels of self-control at 14 months were less likely than their peers to have behaviour problems at 24 months.

“If you’re blessed with a happy baby, then you can get them through the ‘terrible twos’ without things getting too bad or lasting too long, by being flexible about the way you play with your child between the age of 14 and 24 months. A puzzle game, for example, can turn into quite a different game if you allow your child to take the lead,” said Hughes.

Many toddlers have temper tantrums and exhibit frustration and defiant behaviour, in what is commonly known as the ‘terrible twos’. Unfortunately, the autonomy support strategy isn’t equally effective for all children: those born with a more irritable temperament are still more likely to be difficult toddlers.

Parenting must be tailored according to the child, say the researchers. Parents who don’t remember their baby having an easy temperament should let go of the idea of achieving specific goals during play, and allow their children to develop at their own pace.

“As we cope with the upheavals of being in lockdown, we’re having to be patient with ourselves in so many ways. Parents particularly need to be more patient with the toddlers who found life a bit more challenging, even in ordinary times,” said Hughes.

Over 400 expectant couples were recruited for the study from the East of England, New York State and the Netherlands. Each couple was visited when their new baby was 4 months, 14 months and 24 months old, and filmed interacting as their young children carried out a range of specific tasks. ̽��ֱ��research team carefully rated the level of parental support for each interaction. In addition, parents rated their child’s temperament as a baby, and behavioural problems at 14 and 24 months.

Simple tasks were used to test the level of autonomy support parents gave to their child. In one, each child was given farm animal pieces that fitted into cut-out shapes on a board. Some of the parents appeared quite anxious for their child to put the pieces in the right places, and gave them a lot of help. Others spotted that the task was too difficult for their child, and let the game evolve by following the child’s lead.

“We had some children who took two animal pieces from a wooden farm puzzle and started clapping them together, and making a game out of the fact that they made a clapping noise. Here, parents might respond by encouraging the child to make animal noises that match the animals being clapped together,” said Devine. ”Autonomy supportive parenting is about being flexible, following a child’s lead, and providing just the right amount of challenge.”

During lockdown, many parents are having to look after young children at home rather than leaving them in nursery care during working hours. Trying to keep children motivated and engaged all day can be a daunting task. Yet having more time to spend with young children can also be seen as a rare opportunity to explore new ways of engaging with them, say the researchers.

“Rather than trying to make a child achieve a rigidly defined task, autonomy support is more of a playful interaction. It promotes the child’s problem solving and their ability to learn, by letting games or tasks evolve into experiences that engage them,” said Hughes.

Previous studies have looked at links between executive function and antisocial behaviour, and separately at family influences on conduct problems. This study is unique in its direct observational measures of parent-child interactions, in combination with a group of executive function tasks.

̽��ֱ��researchers found the link between executive function at 14 months and reduced problem behaviours at 24 months held up even when controlling for other factors like a child's language skills, and the quality of mother-child interactions.

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the National Science Foundation and the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Reference
Hughes, C., Devine, R.T., Mesman, J., & Blair, C.; ‘Understanding the Terrible Twos: A longitudinal investigation of the impact of early executive function and parent-child interactions.’ Developmental Science, April 2020. DOI: 10.1111/desc.12979

Cambridge’s Centre for Family Research is launching a new online study of parents with one or more child between the ages of four and seven, to explore how the coronavirus is affecting family relationships and home learning. This will help provide the evidence base to guide effective educational and health policies. Find out more.

How you can support Cambridge’s COVID-19 research

Parents should not feel pressured to make their young children undertake structured learning or achieve specific tasks, particularly during lockdown. A new study of children under the age of two has found that parents who take a more flexible approach to their child’s learning can - for children who were easy babies - minimise behavioural problems during toddlerhood.

Rather than trying to make a child achieve a rigidly defined task...promote the child’s problem solving and their ability to learn by letting games or tasks evolve into experiences that engage them

Claire Hughes

Maisie, by Sarah Foley

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Experts call for more mental health support for parents of children with genetic learning disabilities

cjb250 — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:02:58 +0000

As many as one in 20 families worldwide is thought to include a child with a learning disability, but little is known about how this affects the parents’ mental health and wellbeing. Although some parents experience depression and anxiety, it is not clear why some are at greater risk than others.

Professor Claire Hughes from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Centre for Family Research, said: “It’s important that we understand why some parents are at greater risk of mental health problems than others. If a parent experiences long-term mental health problems, this could have a knock-on effect on the whole family, affecting partner relationships, the wellbeing of their child with disability, and the experiences of siblings. That’s why interventions are often more successful when they are designed to help parents in order to help children.”

To address this question, Professor Hughes assembled an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham to analyse information from 888 families taking part in the IMAGINE-ID study – a UK-wide project examining the links between genetic diagnoses, learning disabilities and mental health. Parents were asked to rate their everyday feelings and the nature and impact of their child’s difficulties, as well as to provide information about their family’s social circumstances.

One parent who participated in IMAGINE-ID said that professionals tended to focus on the child’s needs and did not consider the wider needs of families: “It’s very much about getting support for your child. At no point were we ever offered any mental health support, even though we have such a massive role to play in bringing up our children. We need support as well.”

̽��ֱ��study data shows that rates of negative symptoms such as worry, anxiety and stress were much higher in the IMAGINE-ID group of parents than in the general population of parents. Mothers in the IMAGINE-ID study – who were more likely to be the main caregiver – were particularly affected. Contrary to evidence from previous studies, social factors did not predict a parent’s risk of low mood and stress: more important were the type of genetic disorder that affected their child, their child’s physical and medical needs, and their child’s behaviour.

For the first time, the researchers were able to demonstrate that the cause of a child’s disabilities is one factor that predicts the emotional wellbeing of parents. A subgroup of genetic disorders is caused by short missing or duplicated sections of DNA (known as ‘copy number variants’). Parents within this subgroup reported that their child’s difficulties had a high level of impact on family life as well as restricting their child’s activities and friendships, and these impacts were the source of their own distress.

̽��ֱ��researchers say there could be a number of explanations for these findings, varying from the complex effects of chromosomal differences on children’s development through to the availability of support for these families. They have called for more multi-disciplinary, family-focused research to determine how genetic diagnoses are linked to parents’ mental health, so that support for families can be improved in future.

Dr Kate Baker, lead author of the research paper, based at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “These results suggest that we need to start looking at genetic diagnoses as useful not just for predicting a child’s needs and informing the support that they might receive, but also for predicting the broader impact that the diagnosis will have on their family.”

Francesca Wicks, former research coordinator for IMAGINE-ID and now Family Support and Information Officer for Unique, the rare chromosome and single gene disorder support charity, said: “It’s clear that not enough care and support is being offered to parents before, during and after their child’s diagnosis. ̽��ֱ��help and support offered by organisations such as Unique is incredibly valuable, but much more needs to be done within health and statutory services. Many of the families I have met have expressed feelings of anxiety and depression over the years, which is why we have produced our Carers Wellbeing guide.”

̽��ֱ��IMAGINE-ID study is funded by the UK Medical Research Council and Medical Research Foundation.

Reference
Baker, K et al. Childhood intellectual disability and parents’ mental health: integrating social, psychological and genetic influences. BJPsych; 11 March 2020; DOI: 10.1192/bjp.2020.38

Parents of children with genetic conditions that cause learning disabilities are at risk of mental health problems, suggests new research published today in the British Journal of Psychiatry. ̽��ֱ��teams behind the study have called for greater support for parents whose child receives a genetic diagnosis for their learning disability.

If a parent experiences long-term mental health problems, this could have a knock-on effect on the whole family, affecting partner relationships, the wellbeing of their child with disability, and the experiences of siblings

Claire Hughes

freestocks-photos

Parent and child

Researcher profile: Dr Kate Baker

Image: Kate Baker (centre) with research assistant Elise Ng-Cordell (left) and post-doctoral research associate Diandra Brkic (right) on Rare Disease Day

Dr Kate Baker, a researcher at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, decided early on that she wanted to be a scientist as well as a doctor. At the time, she was a medical student and helping out in a brain research laboratory.

“There are just too many unanswered questions about genes, brains, and mental health, and patients deserve better answers and better treatments,” she says. “Initially I learned to study slices of post-mortem brain tissue – then I discovered that doing research with whole people is a lot more fun, even if they are more noisy and complicated.”

Kate says she has been extremely lucky to work with “fantastic” colleagues and research participants who share the same curiosities and motivations – “We want to understand brain development and improve care for children with neurodevelopmental disorders and their families. It’s a slow process but it is also very exciting and rewarding.”

Her research looks at the genetic differences that can affect children’s development by changing the way that their brain grows and functions. “ ̽��ֱ��most surprising aspect is how an extremely tiny change in one gene can have a devastating impact, whilst sometimes much larger genetic changes have only subtle effects which vary a lot from one person to another.”

Kate leads a small research team of psychologists and neuroscientists, but particularly enjoys joining forces with scientists from different research fields who use very different approaches to understand the same core problem, “working together to join the dots and build up a more complete answer”.

One such collaboration is with Professor Claire Hughes from the Centre for Family Research. Cambridge collaborations can begin in unlikely places. “Claire and I started discussing the research questions we have addressed in our new paper after a Sunday morning yoga class, not knowing we would be able to work together to actually find some answers!”

Kate hopes her research will make a difference for children and families affected by severe neurodevelopmental disorders, by changing the way we understand these conditions, and also by improving the treatments and support they can receive.

“Until now, treatments have been mainly ‘symptom-focused’, which don’t always work because the same problems, such as limited communication skills or impulsive behaviours, can come about because of many different underlying reasons. If we had a better understanding of each child’s disorder ‘under the surface’, I hope we can improve their quality of life, even for a small number of patients and families.”

As if this wasn’t enough, Kate and her family have embarked on a challenging project. “My husband, children and I have recently built our own home, on the outskirts of Cambridge. So you’re likely to find me nailing plasterboard, wheelbarrowing mud, making curtains, or (more likely) feeding all the friends and family who have come to help us with the project.”

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Prenatal parental stress linked to behaviour problems in toddlers

ta385 — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 23:18:31 +0000

̽��ֱ��team of researchers – from the Universities of Cambridge, Birmingham, New York and Leiden – say their findings highlight a pressing need for greater support for couples before, during and after pregnancy to improve outcomes for children. ̽��ֱ��study is the first to examine the influence of both mothers’ and fathers’ wellbeing before and after birth on children’s adjustment at 14 and 24 months of age.

Lead author, Professor Claire Hughes from Cambridge’s Centre for Family Research, said: “For too long, the experiences of first-time dads has either been side-lined or treated in isolation from that of mums. This needs to change because difficulties in children’s early relationships with both mothers and fathers can have long-term effects.

“We have already shared our findings with the NCT (National Childbirth Trust) and we encourage the NHS and other organisations to reconsider the support they offer.”

̽��ֱ��study, published today in Development & Psychopathology, drew on the experiences of 438 first-time expectant mothers and fathers who were followed up at 4, 14 and 24 months after birth. These parents were recruited in the East of England, New York State (USA) and the Netherlands.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that the prenatal wellbeing of first-time mothers had a direct impact on the behaviour of their children by the time they were two years old. Mothers who suffered from stress and anxiety in the prenatal period were more likely to see their child display behavioural problems such as temper tantrums, restlessness and spitefulness.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found that two-year-olds were more likely to exhibit emotional problems – including being worried, unhappy and tearful; scaring easily; or being clingy in new situations – if their parents had been having early postnatal relationship problems. These ranged from a general lack of happiness in the relationship to rows and other kinds of conflict.

Hughes says: “Our findings highlight the need for earlier and more effective support for couples to prepare them better for the transition to parenthood.”

Links between child outcomes and parental wellbeing have been shown in other studies, but this is the first to involve couples, track parental wellbeing in both parents over an extended period of time, and focus on child behaviour in the first two years of life. While there is growing evidence for the importance of mental health support for expectant and new mothers, this study highlights the need to extend this support to expectant fathers and to go beyond individual well-being to consider the quality of new mothers’ and fathers’ couple relationships.

̽��ֱ��researchers acknowledge that genetic factors are likely to play a role but they accounted for parents’ mental health difficulties prior to their first pregnancy and after their child’s birth. Co-author Dr Rory Devine, a developmental psychologist at the ̽��ֱ�� of Birmingham, says “Our data demonstrate that mental health problems during pregnancy have a unique impact on children’s behavioural problems.”

Using standardized questionnaires and in-person interviews, participating mothers and fathers reported on their symptoms of anxiety and depression in the third trimester of pregnancy and when their child was 4, 14 and 24 months old. At each of these visits, parents also completed standardized questionnaire measures of couple relationship quality and children’s emotions and behaviour.

Hughes says: “There has been an assumption that it’s really difficult to get dads involved in research like this. But our study draws on a relatively large sample and is unique because both parents answered the same questions at every stage, which enabled us to make direct comparisons.”

̽��ֱ��research is part of an ongoing project examining the wellbeing and influence of new mothers and fathers. In a closely linked study, published in Archives of Women’s Mental Health in July 2019, the team found that fathers share in traumatic memories of birth with their partners far more than has previously been recognised. This study compared the wellbeing of parents in the third trimester of pregnancy with that when their child was four months old.

Co-author, Dr Sarah Foley, also from Cambridge’s Centre for Family Research said: “If mum has a difficult birth, that can be a potentially traumatic experience for dads.”

“What both studies show is that we need to make antenatal support much more inclusive and give first-time mums and dads the tools they need to communicate with each other and better prepare them for this major transition. With resources stretched, parents are missing out on the support they need.”

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the National Science Foundation, and the Dutch Research Council.

References
Hughes, C., Devine, R.T., Mesman, J., & Blair, C. ‘Parental wellbeing, couple relationship quality and children’s behavior problems in the first two years of life.’ Development & Psychopathology; 6 August 2019; DOI: 10.1017/S0954579419000804

Expectant parents’ emotional struggles predict emotional and behavioural problems in 2-year-olds, new research shows. ̽��ֱ��same study reveals, for the first time, that couple conflict helps explain emotional problems in very young children.

For too long, the experiences of first-time dads has either been side-lined or treated in isolation from that of mums. This needs to change because difficulties in children’s early relationships with both mothers and fathers can have long-term effects

Claire Hughes

Stock Snap

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Gardeners and carpenters: the ‘skill’ of parenting

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 09:20:41 +0000

Professors Claire Hughes and Paul Ramchandani have spent their adult lives studying children. Both are fascinated by the complicated jigsaw of early child development. “Such a lot happens in pregnancy and the first few years of life: the child’s brain and physical development, the acquisition of new skills and knowledge, it’s utterly transforming,” says Ramchandani, Cambridge’s first LEGO Professor of Play.

But while we know much about what goes on, we understand far less about how the outside world shapes this transformation – knowledge we need as parents, practitioners and policymakers to provide environments that help children thrive.

It’s clear, for instance, that our mothers, fathers and families affect our lives and the people we become, but has understanding the importance of parent–child relationships led to modern-day parenting approaches that stifle rather than help a child to flourish?

“Think carpenters and gardeners,” says Hughes, referring to a book by American psychologist Alison Gopnik published in 2016. “Gopnik’s theory is that parents who behave like carpenters mould their child by a deliberate, organised and focused influence on their development; those who behave like gardeners create a safe, nurtured and free environment that helps their child to shape themself.”

Hughes’ work looks at how parents talk to children in their early years and what this means for how children develop some of the most crucial skills of their lives. Since she began her academic career as an undergraduate in Cambridge 30 years ago, her focus has shifted from clinical groups, including children with autism, to studying social influences on two key psychological constructs – theory of mind and executive function.

Psychologists use the term theory of mind, or mind reading, to describe awareness that other people have thoughts, feelings, intentions and desires. Most children develop theory of mind around the age of four. “Without it you can’t joke, you can’t lie, you can’t get sarcasm – the many social things that hinge on what others say and mean to say,” she says.

As a result, theory of mind is pivotal to children’s ability to interact and form social relationships, but it doesn’t act alone. Along with theory of mind comes executive function – all those higher-order thinking skills such as planning, adapting plans when situations change and working memory.

“These two things go hand in glove,” explains Hughes, whose research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. “You need good executive function to acquire a theory of mind, because how we process information from others depends on being able to keep track of information and shift attention, and we know that poor executive function often leads to behavioural problems, which can in turn affect children’s ability to learn from social situations.”

By following a group of 117 children from toddlerhood to adolescence, and developing a new battery of tests – including an innovative ‘silent film’ task based on Harold Lloyd’s 1923 comedy Safety Last!, developed with one of her former students, Dr Rory Devine – Hughes has been able to gain a deeper understanding of how family environments shape young children’s theory of mind.

Her studies show that how parents talk to toddlers – in particular the extent to which they use words such as ‘think’, ‘believe’, ‘understand’ and other so-called ‘mental state talk’ – predicts how well children do at the silent film task when they reach the age of ten.

One of her new studies, which involves more than 400 first-time families in the UK, USA and Netherlands, aims to tease out differences in the way that fathers and mothers talk to their children. “We’re filming children at home at four, 12 and 24 months and we are now following them up at nursery at the age of three,” says Hughes. “It’s a big study, producing very rich data, and we’re using some interesting technology – including a device that’s like a talk pedometer – to get at children’s linguistic environments.”

Such detailed, long-term studies could, she hopes, lead to simple and effective tools to help parents foster their children’s theory of mind skills. Together with Professors Lynne Murray and Peter Cooper at the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading, Hughes is testing a South African intervention based on reading picture books, something that’s on the decline within UK families.

“It’s been a revelation to me to see how hard some parents find it to read a picture book. Some literally just read what’s on the page, and if there are no words they just show the picture,” she says. “ ̽��ֱ��South African study shows that in ten weeks you can take parents who aren’t very good at this type of reading and show them how to get their child involved.”

Testing new interventions is also central to Ramchandani’s research, not least because as well as an academic he’s also a practising psychiatrist. “I come from a medical background where you want to learn stuff so that you can do something about it,” he says.

He’s currently leading a randomised controlled trial with parents from London, Peterborough, Oxford and Hertfordshire to see if video feedback is a viable way of promoting positive child development. Over six sessions, parents are filmed playing with their toddler and the videos are then used to help parents notice – and respond appropriately to – their child’s communication.

One of his long-standing areas of interest is the role fathers play in the lives of their young children, something he feels has often been overlooked. “There are obvious reasons for this – mothers are more often the primary carers and theories that have dominated psychology have revolved around the mother–child relationship – plus, over the past 30 years, most research on children’s relationships with parents has focused on mothers,” says Ramchandani.

Before arriving in Cambridge in early 2018, he conducted the first major study of depression in fathers, which revealed that paternal – as well as maternal – depression has an impact on child outcomes.

“This study got me thinking about the family constellation, about how mothers and fathers influence children, and how children influence parents too, which led to my interest in play as one aspect of those relationships.”

Since then, he’s studied the way fathers play with their babies and found that when fathers were more physically and emotionally engaged, children did better behaviourally and cognitively. “It’s striking to see how different fathers can have very different styles of interacting with their babies, even though they are very young, with some getting stuck in and leading the play, and others watching and following their child’s lead more”.

Ramchandani is Director of Cambridge’s Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning, and with the team will be looking at an even wider field of play – studying its role in learning and social development, and finding the best way of measuring playfulness itself.

“Healthy child development is a fascinating and complicated picture: a jigsaw comprising fathers, mothers, siblings and the wider world, and involving language, play, physical and psychological health and more,” adds Ramchandani. “By getting a clearer picture of how it works, we have the best chance of helping to improve children’s lives around the world.”

Inset image: read more about our research on the topic of children in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

Wanting your child to have the best chance in life is natural for any parent. But by focusing too much on the ‘skill’ of parenting, are we losing sight of things that matter more – how we talk to and play with children? Cambridge researchers are examining how parents can best help their children in their early years through nurturing rather than shaping.

Healthy child development is a fascinating and complicated picture. By getting a clearer picture of how it works, we have the best chance of helping to improve children’s lives around the world

Paul Ramchandani

Sushobhan Badhai

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