Message from the Principal Investigator:

Thank you so much for your participation in the Preschool Emotion Project! Our work is only possible because of your involvement, and we are very grateful to you.

As you know, we are interested in understanding the range of emotions and behaviors that young children typically show day to day, and how these behaviors contribute to their development. We collected data from 609 families at Time 1 when children were 3-5 years old. We are currently collecting follow-up data when children are 6-8-years-old. We thank you for your continued participation so we can keep answering important questions about children’s emotional development!

Below is a summary of some findings from Time 1 of our study. We will update this summary as we continue to analyze our data.

Sincerely,
Sara Bufferd, Ph.D.

Bufferd, S. J., Olino, T. M., & Dougherty, L. R. (in press). Quantifying Severity of Preschool-Aged Children’s Internalizing Behaviors: A Daily Diary Analysis. Assessment.

• In this study, we assessed the frequency of common behaviors relevant to anxiety (e.g., separation anxiety; social anxiety) and mood (e.g., sadness, irritability) in preschool-aged children. These are behaviors that are very developmentally typical and can also cause parents concern or worry. Our goal is to better understand how frequently young children are showing these behaviors. With continued research follow-up, these data can help guide families and child practitioners in better understanding the levels of behavior in preschool age that may be associated with increased risk for anxiety or mood difficulties.

• We collected daily diary data over 14 days for 609 parents of 3-5-year-old children. Every night, parents answered questions about the frequency of their children’s behaviors that day. We asked how frequently each anxiety and mood behavior occurred that day and the extent to which the behavior caused difficulties and distress for the child and parent.

• We examined the range of frequencies of behaviors displayed by children (see Table 1). We list the specific behaviors we assessed in the daily diary, along with the percentile range of each category. Each frequency reflects the total amount of times the behavior was displayed across the 14-day diary period.

  • For example, children in the second percentile range category for “Distress when anticipating separation” (55-72%) showed this behavior 1-3 times across two weeks.

  • As another example, children in the first percentile range category for “Sadness” (<56%) showed this behavior 0-9 times across the two weeks.

  • These two examples show that sadness is a more common/frequent behavior in 3-5-year-old children than distress when anticipating separation.

• For each behavior, you can see the frequencies of behavior that occur in the highest percentile range category/at the higher end of the spectrum of that behavior.*

  Examples:

  • Fearful of going to sleep without caregiver: 14 or more times, or daily

  • Shyness around new people: 7 or more times, or approximately every other day

  • Irritability: 44 or more times, or approximately 3 or more instances of irritability per day

  • Tantrums: 27 or more times, or approximately 2 or more tantrums per day

• Across these analyses, we found that many mood behaviors (e.g., sadness, irritability, tantrums, tearfulness) were more common overall that anxiety behaviors.

• The frequency categories did not differ for girls and boys or across age groups (3, 4, and 5) in our sample; however, an even larger study could possibly identify differences.

• We also found that more frequent daily anxiety and mood behaviors were associated with more difficulties for the child and parent/family. More frequent child behaviors were associated with higher ratings of distress and more difficult parent-child relationships each day.

• In future studies, we hope to collect daily data about parent-child interactions given that child and parent behavior impact each other, especially in young children. We also hope to further assess the factors that influence daily child and parent behavior, such as sleep and stress.

*As a reminder, please note that these data are not diagnostic in any way; they simply display the range of behaviors that parents reported about the children in our sample. We believe that with additional data, we will be able to have a better idea about the levels of behavior that increase risk for psychological difficulties. However, even then, these processes are very complex and impacted by multiple factors, such that no single research study can fully address these important questions, and may not always apply to a single individual. Any parent with concerns should seek additional assessment. We are glad to continue to provide resources.