Child Well-being in Family Context

Children’s well-being is a multidimensional construct that includes cognitive, behavioral and emotional regulation, social competence and indicators of children’s subjective well-being. Recently, there has been an increasing emphasis on research into the subjective well-being of children. There is relatively little research on changes in different domains of well-being, especially in the domains of subjective well-being, in middle childhood and at the transition to adolescence. In addition, the nature and direction of changes in different domains of well-being is not entirely clear. Research shows that parental and family characteristics are important predictors of various aspects of children’s well-being. Therefore, it is important to investigate the role of the family context in the development of children’s well-being. In addition, the role of digital media use in predicting children’s well-being will be investigated. This project will use a longitudinal-sequential cohort research design to examine the (in)stability of different domains of child well-being and to examine the contribution of different characteristics of the family context and parenting behaviors to the prediction of child well-being. During 4 years, it is planned to conduct 3 waves of research with children aged 9, 10 and 11 years at the first measurement point. In all 3 waves, children will assess their own subjective well-being and the use of digital technologies, parents will assess children’s cognitive, behavioral and emotional regulation as well as family well-being and parenting behaviors, and teachers will assess children’s social competence. Based on previous research, a decrease in subjective measures of children’s well-being and an increase in measures of cognitive, behavioral and emotional regulation and social competence of children is expected. Family characteristics are expected to predict children’s well-being directly and through parenting behaviors separately for mother and father. The results of this research will enable the expansion of knowledge about changes and determinants of children’s well-being in middle childhood and early adolescence.