Children's interpersonal behaviors and the teacher-child relationship.

S. H. Birch, G. W. Ladd

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

619 Scopus citations

Abstract

Relations between kindergartners' (N = 199; M age = 5 years 6 months) behavioral orientations and features of their 1st-grade teacher-child relationships (i.e., conflict, closeness, dependency) were examined longitudinally. Early behavioral orientations predicted teacher-child relationship quality in that (a) unique associations emerged between children's early antisocial behavior and features of their 1st-grade teacher-child relationships (i.e., negative relation with closeness, positive relation with conflict and dependency) and between asocial behavior and teacher-child dependency, and (b) prosocial behavior was correlated with but not uniquely related to any feature of children's 1st-grade teacher-child relationships. In addition, specific features of the teacher-child relationship (e.g., conflict) predicted changes in children's behavioral adjustment (e.g., decreasing prosocial behavior).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)934-946
Number of pages13
JournalDevelopmental psychology
Volume34
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1998
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Demography
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Life-span and Life-course Studies

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