Preschool Teachers' Emotional Acting and School-Based Interactions.

How preschool teachers manage and express their feelings across school-based interactions (e.g., teacher-child, teacher-family, and teacher-colleague) has implications for their professional success and the developmental and academic outcomes of their relational counterparts. This study explores how preschool teachers make sense of their emotional labor, or the deliberate expression or suppression of emotions to achieve organizational goals, in the context of three professional interactions. Qualitative findings show preschool teachers' decisions to engage in particular types of emotional acting are both informed by and a facilitator of the strength and intimacy of their relationships. Implications for research, practice and policy are reviewed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10643-022-01326-1.

'Staying Afloat': A Mixed Methods Study of the Financial and Psychological Well-being of Early Childhood Educators.

Early childhood educators play a critical role in the lives of young children, especially through their sensitive interactions. Educators' capacities to engage in high-quality interactions are shaped by their mental health. Studies examining early childhood educators' mental health often focus on psychopathology or negative aspects of mental health, despite the importance of understanding mental health through a well-being lens. This study explores the connection between two important areas of well-being: psychological and financial well-being. Using mixed methods, we examined 123 early childhood educators' financial well-being and psychological well-being. Financial well-being predicted psychological well-being, but the relationship was curvilinear; those with the highest and lowest financial well-being had the highest psychological well-being. Qualitative findings suggest possible buffers for psychological well-being among educators with low-financial well-being and highlight struggles of those with low psychological well-being. Implications for how early childhood educators' well-being might be supported with policy and practice initiatives are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10643-022-01429-9.

Central American Immigrant Mothers' Mental Health in the Context of Illegality: Structural Stress, Parental Concern, and Trauma.

Using a community-based participatory research approach, we surveyed 134 undocumented Central American immigrant mothers to examine correlates of maternal mental health. Drawing upon an ecosystemic framework, predictors of depression included structural and familial stressors, parental concerns, and maternal health factors. Mothers' perceptions of child affect, traumatic stress, and general health ratings were among the most salient predictors. However, structural and familial stressors, such as food insecurity and single parenting, also accounted for significant variance in depression scores. Findings informed community actions such as advocating for mental health care and building awareness of families' lived experiences within the local school system.

The Transmission of Parenting from Fathers to Sons.

OBJECTIVE: We address the extent to which parenting practices of fathers and mothers are associated with their sons' parenting behaviors as young adults and whether adolescent behavior explains this association. DESIGN: Data come from 409 young men interviewed in the 2006 Young Adult study of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. RESULTS: Men whose fathers were positively involved with them when growing up report more positive parenting of their own children, a direct effect. Less harsh mothering and more positive fathering are associated with reduced adolescent behavior problems, and positive mothering is associated with positive adjustment of these young men as adolescents. However, neither adolescent problem behavior nor positive adjustment is associated with young men's fathering of their own children, and thus does not explain the association between the fathering young men received and their own fathering behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Men's parenting of their sons can have a long-term direct effect on how their sons parent their own children. Although parenting is associated with both positive and negative behaviors of sons during adolescence, these adolescent behaviors are not directly linked to later parenting behavior when sons have their own children. More research is needed to examine mediation mechanisms for the intergenerational transmission of parenting.