Hot off the press!
THE GIST: In this study we followed 300 students in 9th-11th grade and assessed their hope levels, engagement with teachers and peers, and tracked their grades. We found what’s called a “longitudinal mediation effect”, meaning kids who feel positively about themselves and their futures were then more likely to engage with supportive peers and interact positively with their teachers, which then led to higher grades a year later, in addition to increased hope.
THE TAKEAWAY: To some extent, the rich get richer when it comes to youth hope. This is not a bad thing. It simply means that early intervention and encouragement of future-thinking and goal-setting will have lasting benefits. Secondly, teachers need all the support they can get, because they catalyze the hope-building process toward youth’s relationship and educational success. Good friends are also a plus. What YOU can do: Support teachers. Encourage goal-setting early in the high school career. Focus on relationships in addition grades - because one will naturally lead to the other.
Bryce, C. I., Fraser, A. M., Alexander, B. L., & Fabes, R. A. (2024). Hope longitudinally predicts achievement: Mediation of cognitive engagement, teacher, and peer support. The Journal of Educational Research, 117(6), 333-343.
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Hope longitudinally predicts achievement:
Mediation of cognitive engagement, teacher, and peer support.
Sticks and stones may break bones, but racism breaks spirits: The impact of discrimination on BIPOC adolescent mental health outcomes.
THE GIST: Teenagers of Color (Black, Brown, Indigenous, etc.) are often the most at risk for mental illness and simultaneously receive the least amount of community support/resources. In this study we investigated whether having an “affirmed” ethnic racial identity - a.k.a. if having positive feelings about your race - could buffer the negative effects of racial discrimination on markers of mental health problems including depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, decreased happiness and chronic pain. Surprisingly, we found that there was no buffer effect and actually having an affirmed racial identity could make chronic pain and happiness levels worse, even though our models generally showed that discrimination was bad for mental health and the positive feelings were good for it. We think this means that the teens who are the most “in-the-know” and positive about their racial identity are taking the biggest hit to their mental health when people are mean and racist.
THE TAKEAWAY: We should still be encouraging positive feelings about racial identity for youth of color, but it’s going to take more than that to overcome the negative effects of racism on their mental and physical health. Anti-racist involvement at the community level is going to be essential. So what can you do? In your personal spheres: mentor, encourage, uplift and educate yourself (do the work!) on the issues youth of color face and widen your circle to include more diverse people. In your civic sphere: vote, fund a community center, say something when you hear a racist joke or remark in public. Kids are our future, so if we want them healthy, happy and ready to contribute to society we have to create one where they can thrive. Onward and upward my friends!
Archibald, C., Takamasa, E. J., Fraser, A. M., Metcalf, M. W., Rogers, A. A., & Bean, R. A. (2024). Sticks and Stones May Break Bones, But Racism Breaks Spirits: Discrimination and BIPOC Adolescent Mental Health. Youth & Society, 0044118X241266887.
THE GIST: Children between the ages of 2 and 4 often spend a lot of time in front of the television watching a variety of different content, but some of the long term ramifications are still unknown. Researchers in this study investigated what media children were watching and how much they were watching it. Then they looked for how that influenced certain behaviors in the children over time - including their aggression, prosocial behavior (like how well they interact with other children), and problematic media use (like needing to give a child a screen as the only way to calm them down). They found three main groups: children engaging in large quantities of media, children engaging in low amounts of media, and children who were engaged in particularly aggressive media content. Interestingly, what they found was that children who were watching more aggression on the screen demonstrated more aggressive behavior than kids who didn’t, regardless of how much or little screen time they were getting. The children engaging in more aggressive media were also shown to have less prosocial behavior than the other groups.
THE TAKEAWAY: We know that children in this age group are highly influential, and we've been seeing that much media or media of lesser quality can do a lot of damage in the long run. It’s important to remember how malleable their young minds are and to be aware of what kinds of media they are observing and how often they are viewing it. Violence in media in the adult world looks much more aggressive than it might in a youth program, and the study noted that this might be why it gets overlooked. One thing we can be proactive about is the actual content of children’s shows (and to not just accept it because of its genre). Television programs can be a great educational tool - as long as we are careful to not let violence seep in unnoticed!
Toddlers & the Telly
Holmgren, H. G., Stockdale, L., Shawcroft, J., Coyne, S. M., & Fraser, A. M. (2023). Toddlers and the Telly: A latent profile analysis of children’s television time and content and behavioral outcomes one year later in the US. Journal of children and media, 17(3), 298-317.