Longitudinal prediction of primary school children's COVID-related future anxiety in the second year of the pandemic in Germany.

Although research has confirmed that the first COVID-19-related lockdown has increased stress and mental health problems in children, less is known about the longer-term effects of the pandemic on children's COVID-related future anxiety (CRFA). Because of CRFA's potentially debilitating effects, risk and resilience factors against this anxiety were investigated. To this end, n = 140 children (49% female) in 3rd and 4th grade classrooms in Germany were asked to perform a working memory task and to self-report about their CRFA and emotion regulation in December 2020 and in May 2021. More maladaptive emotion regulation in December 2020 contributed to the explanation of a high CRFA score in May 2021, whereas a better performance on working memory updating contributed a lower CRFA score later when controls were in place. These results were confirmed when children's CRFA in December 2020 was included in the prediction of their later CRFA. They suggest that maladaptive strategies of emotion regulation, such as rumination, may explain higher or increasing levels of CRFA, whereas efficient working memory updating may be an indicator of processing information in a way which shields children from CRFA-related thoughts. The concepts underlying these variables should be included in prevention and intervention efforts.

Daily breath-based mindfulness exercises in a randomized controlled trial improve primary school children's performance in arithmetic.

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been shown to improve children's academic achievements. Because MBIs include different exercises (possibly with differential effects), the teacher-led Breathing Break Intervention (BBI) was developed which focuses exclusively on breathing exercises and body awareness. The short daily breathing practices of BBI were evaluated in terms of their effects on children's performance in mathematics. In a randomized controlled trial, N = 140 third and fourth graders (49% female) either received BBI (IG, n = 81) or participated in an active control group (ACG, n = 59). Students took a standardized arithmetic test and teachers rated their mathematics performance before (T1) and after (T2) the nine weeks of BBI, and in a follow-up five months later (T3). A mixed multilevel model with a quadratic term of time indicated a significant interaction effect between group and time on the arithmetic test after controlling for working memory updating and parental educational attainment. IG children did not show a steeper linear increase but differed significantly from ACG children in their trajectory of arithmetic performance. At T3, IG children outperformed ACG children. A multilevel ordinal logistic regression of teachers' ratings of students' mathematics performance revealed no significant differences between IG and ACG. Results suggest that daily breathing exercises in primary school classrooms contribute to enhancing children's performance in arithmetic.Preregistration: The study was preregistered at aspredicted.org (#44925).

What predicts the alleviation of Covid-related future anxiety in schoolchildren 6 to 9 months into the pandemic?

Introduction: Although the first COVID-19-related lockdown in the Spring of 2020 has contributed to an increase in mental health problems in many children worldwide, less is known about the longer-term effects of the pandemic on their (future) anxiety. This article examines resilience factors against children's Covid-relatedfut ure anxiety (CRFA). Methods: N = 140 children (48,6% female) in 3rd and 4th grade classrooms in Northern Germany were asked to self-report about their CRFA, their anxiety, and the social climate in their classrooms in September (T1) and December 2020 (T2). Results: Results indicate that 18.6% of the children experienced CRFA "often" in at least one item of the CRFA scale at T1. CRFA was more pronounced in girls and in children from immigrant families. Changes in children's CRFA between T1 and T2 were predicted by changes in their anxiety and changes in classroom climate. Children in classrooms with increasing levels of peer support tended to have decreasing levels of CRFA, whereas their agemates' CRFA in less supportive classrooms tended to increase over time. Discussion: These results suggest that peer and teacher social support may bolster children's resilience against future anxiety in challenging times. Implications for teachers and schools are discussed.

A Daily Breathing Practice Bolsters Girls' Prosocial Behavior and Third and Fourth Graders' Supportive Peer Relationships: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objectives: In order to promote mindfulness in primary school, the Breathing Break Intervention was developed. This collection of short daily breath-based mindfulness practices was introduced to 15 teachers who delivered them up to 3 times a day to their students. Method: In a randomized controlled trial, 146 third and fourth graders (49% female) either received the intervention (n = 81) or participated in the active wait list control group (n = 65). Students were asked to nominate prosocial peers and to report on supportive peer relationships in their classrooms before (pretest) and after (posttest) the 9 weeks of the Breathing Break Intervention, and in a follow-up 5 months later. Results: Mixed multilevel models indicated a group × sex × posttest interaction (t(211) = 2.64, p < 0.01) suggesting that girls in the intervention group were rated to be more prosocial by their peers at posttest than at pretest and than girls in the active control group when children's age and parents' education were accounted for. Supportive peer relationships in the active control group deteriorated between pretest and posttest, which occurred immediately before the second school lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas they remained the same in the intervention group (t(223) = 2.56, p < 0.05). Both effects were not maintained at follow-up, probably due to children's irregular school attendance during the lockdown. Conclusions: Introducing a short daily breathing practice in primary school classrooms seems to be effective in maintaining supportive peer relationships and in stimulating girls' prosocial behavior. Preregistration: The study was preregistered at aspredicted.org (#44925). Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12671-023-02158-9.

[School Children's COVID-Related Future Anxiety over the Course of 8Months of the Pandemic]. / Coronabezogene Zukunftsangst bei Grundschulkindern im Verlauf von 8 Monaten der Pandemie.

To explore the long-term effects of the COVID-19-pandemic on children, N = 140 8- to 10- year-olds were asked about their COVID-related future anxiety (CRFA) in their classrooms during months 6, 9, and 14 of the pandemic which started inMarch 2020 in Germany. Future anxiety was defined as a "state of apprehension, uncertainty, fear, worry, or anxiety about unfavorable changes in a more distant personal future" which was related to the effects of the COVID- 19-pandemic. In this survey, 13%to 19%of children reported experiencing CRFA "often" on at least one of the four items of the newly developed CRFA scale. Experiencing CRFA "often" was reported by 16% of the children at two and by 8 % of the children at three measurement points, among them more girls and more children from homes with poor educational backgrounds. Analyses uncovered large interindividual differences: For 45 % of the children CRFA decreased between months 6 and 9 of the pandemic, whereas for 43 % it increased. Children of parents with low educational backgrounds weremore likely to report frequent CRFA at all three measurement time points, even after controlling for gender and incidence of COVID-19-in Germany.This confirms predictions that contagion risk and controllability influence future anxiety. The descriptive results additionally support earlier findings that many children already experience future anxiety about macro-level events. The results on chronic CRFA underscore the urgency to examine the long-time effects of CRFA with greater care.This is of paramount importance considering the macro-level challenges of the future.

The Adaptive Test of Emotion Knowledge for 3-to 9-Year-Olds: Psychometric Properties and Validity.

Children with an advanced knowledge of emotions are generally more socially competent, less likely to suffer from psychopathology, and more likely to succeed in school, both socially and academically. The assessment of children's emotion knowledge has thus gained importance in recent decades - both in psychiatric practice and in developmental and educational psychology. However, there is still a lack of appropriate instruments for assessing children's emotion knowledge in a performance test reliably, and for a broad age range. The Adaptive Test of Emotion Knowledge (ATEM 3-9) is a newly developed measure which encompasses seven components of emotion knowledge in 3-9-year-olds. The ATEM 3-9 is an adaptive test which uses skip and dropout rules to adjust for children's varying levels of knowledge. In addition to German, the ATEM has been translated into English and Hebrew. The German norming sample of the ATEM 3-9 comprises N = 882 (54% female, 21% bilingual) children between the ages of 3 and 9 years, who were divided into seven age groups. Test items, which are ordered according to the item response theory, showed a good fit to a seven-dimensional model reflecting the seven components. The internal consistencies of the dimensions are acceptable to good. Construct validity was examined by means of correlations with other measures of emotion knowledge, as well as measures on language skills and executive functions in a subsample. This resulted in medium size correlations in the expected directions. In addition, children with externalizing and internalizing disorders who were recruited in psychiatric in- and outpatient clinics showed deficits in various components of emotion knowledge when compared to their agemates in the norming sample. Overall, the ATEM 3-9 is well suited to measure individual components of emotion knowledge in children and to obtain a differentiated picture of the various aspects of emotion knowledge. The ATEM 3-9 thus supports the investigation of the development of social-emotional competencies in normative development (e.g., school readiness) and in social-emotional-learning interventions. Furthermore, it is suitable as an instrument for the differentiated assessment of (progress of) children's emotion knowledge in clinical child psychology and psychiatry.

Teaching the Teachers About Language Support Strategies: Effects on Young Children's Language Development.

The feeling thinking talking (FTT) intervention was designed because early childhood seems to be a prime time for fostering young children's language skills. This intervention involved teaching teachers from N = 28 kindergarten groups in N = 13 German kindergartens language support strategies (LSS) to be used in everyday conversations with the children in their care. The FTT intervention was evaluated in a business-as-usual control group design with N = 281 children (mean age = 49.82 months, range = 33-66 months at T1, mixed SES) who were individually tested using objective tests on grammar, vocabulary and working memory before (T1) and after the FTT intervention (T2), and in a follow-up about one year after T1 (T3). After propensity matching was applied, multilevel models demonstrated that the children taught by the intervention group teachers made faster progress in their understanding of sentences, their application of morphological rules, and their memory for sentences when numerous covariates (child age, gender, behavioral self-regulation, multilingual upbringing, and family SES) were controlled. Results suggest that complex language processing abilities in young children can be promoted by a teacher-led intervention in early childhood education. Improved language skills will further all children's academic and social success in school.

Native-born German and immigrant children's development of emotion knowledge: A latent growth curve analysis.

Young children in immigrant families tend to face more challenges and can often call upon fewer resources than their native-born peers. This situation adversely affects their social-emotional development. In this study, the development of emotion knowledge of 576 immigrant and native-born German children, aged 3-6 years, was compared at three time points over a 12-month period by means of a latent growth curve analysis. Language abilities and behavioural self-regulation were examined as mediators of the relation between immigration background and emotion knowledge. The immigrant children showed less emotion knowledge than did their native-born peers at each point of measurement. These effects were partially mediated by their behavioural self-regulation and their language abilities. How behavioural self-regulation and language abilities affect the development of emotion knowledge and what this effect means for interventions are discussed. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Emotion knowledge develops rapidly between the ages of three and six. Emotion knowledge develops similarly in different cultures. What does this study adds? This study compares the development of emotion knowledge between immigrant children and native-born children. It includes language skills as mediator on the development of emotion knowledge. It also includes behavioural self-regulation as mediator on the development of emotion knowledge.