Conference Agenda

Parents’ use of digital tools in the presence of toddlers, a situation known as “technoference”, may be motivated by stress and anxiety. Its presence in families could be related to toddler’s behavior problems and the quality of toddler attachment. The aim of this study was to examine the relations between parental stress and anxiety, fathers’ and mothers’ technoference behaviors, toddler’s behavior problems and the quality of their attachment. To this end, 105 parents of toddlers aged 1-3 completed questionnaires and performed a card sorting task. The results differed according to parental gender. For mothers, stress was associated with more technoference behaviors, and these behaviors were in turn linked to less secure attachment in toddlers. No relation was found between anxiety, maternal technoference behaviors and the toddler’s behavior problems. For fathers, no significant relation was identified. This study provides a new perspective on gender differences and offers practical implications for interventions aimed at supporting parents in managing stress and improving interactions with their toddlers. Future longitudinal research on gender differences, parental psychological characteristics, and the effect of technoference on toddler’s socio-emotional development appears essential.

Background: Children in high-risk contexts are vulnerable in almost all areas of development (Harding et al., 2020). Clinically, young parents may have difficulty supporting and guiding the regulation of more irritable children and there have been several studies that have suggested that young parents may have difficulty helping their infants regulate negative emotions (Crugnola et al., 2014). Moreover, infant irritability can generate further parental distress, which can impair the quality of interactions and emerging attachment (Neuhauser, 2018). The aim of this study was to determine whether parental stress can mediate the relationship between parental perceptions of children's irritability and: 1) maternal sensitivity; and 2) attachment security. Method: 83 adolescent mother-infant dyads, considered to be psychosocially vulnerable, participated in this study. When the children were 6 and 10 months old, mothers completed the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ; Bates, 1992). At 15 months, mothers completed the Parental Stress Index (PSI; Abidin, 1995). Assessments of parental sensitivity and attachment security (Maternal Behavior Q-Sort; MBQS; Pederson & Moran, 1995; Attachment Behavior Q-Sort; AQS; Waters, 1995) were completed at 15 and 18 months, respectively. Results: Bivariate associations were observed between irritability and the PSI (r = .44), between the PSI and the MBQS (r = -.24; p < .05), and between the PSI and the AQS (r = -.31; p < .01). There were no associations between irritability and sensitivity or attachment. Multiple regressions indicated an indirect association between irritability and sensitivity mediated by parental stress (95% CI -.01 to -.007) and between irritability and attachment also mediated by stress (95% CI -.01 to -.001). Discussion: Infant irritability and parental stress are discussed as in the context of setting the conditions for later sensitivity and relationship harmony. The potential for using the experience of stress as a condition for prevention is considered.

Background: Childhood obesity is a chronic disease considered a major public health issue (Ogden et al., 2014), difficult to prevent and treat due to its multiple etiologies: obesogenic environment, psychosocial, relational and genetic factors have recently been studied to understand the etiology and maintenance of obesity and overweight in children (Santos et al., 2021). However, multifactorial analyses combining these different factors and their influences on weight have rarely been conducted despite promising results (Santos et al., 2021). In addition, the inclusion of the child's emotion self-regulation as a mediator between these factors is a hypothesis currently being explored to assess their common mechanisms in the child’s development and his or her food weight (Bost et al., 2014). The aim of this study is to evaluate the links between child attachment, emotional self-regulation (measured by delay abilities, self-reports of caregivers) according to different types of child weight (underweight, average weight, overweight, obesity). Methods: Sixty families with children aged 3 to 6 years old were included in this study after being contacted by the researchers in pediatrics institutions and on social networks. Families were met at their homes and a mixed methodology was used to assess the different factors: the quality of the child's attachment was measured using the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT; Bretherton, 2008). Emotion regulation was assessed by the Gift in bag protocol (Kochanska, et al., 2000), and the Emotional Regulation Inventory (ERC-vf) (Nader-Grosbois & Mazzone, 2015). Results and Discussion: Statistical analyses revealed a significative interaction between the child’s attachment representations, emotion regulation assessed by the gift in bag protocol, and the child’s weight. More analyses are currently ongoing to assess sample differences (e.g child’s gender). These results and methodology will be discussed.

Studies show that insecure attachment, especially disorganized or controlling attachment in early childhood, is associated with higher levels of behavior problems, with effects often strongest in preschool and in clinical or high‑risk samples (Badovinac et al., 2021; Madigan et al., 2016). Yet, effect sizes are modest and appear sensitive to sample characteristics, attachment subtypes, and measurement methods, raising questions about how far the links between attachment and psychopathology generalize from community to clinic‑referred children (Badovinac et al., 2021; Dagan et al., 2021; Deneault et al., 2021). The study aimed (1) to compare internalizing and externalizing problems and attachment behaviors between clinical and community preschool children, and (2) to test associations between attachment and behavior problems within each group. Participants were 98 mother-child dyads (children aged 23-83 months): 47 recruited from a child psychiatry clinic (M = 2.7 diagnoses) and 51 from the community. Mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and child attachment (groups and dimensional scales) was assessed using age‑appropriate separation-reunion procedures. Results indicated that, after controlling for age and sex, children in the clinical group showed more internalizing and externalizing problems than community children, along with higher levels of ambivalent, disorganized, and controlling‑caregiving attachment behaviors, and lower levels of secure behaviors. Across the full sample, externalizing problems were associated with more ambivalent, disorganized, and controlling‑caregiving behaviors and fewer secure behaviors, whereas internalizing problems showed no significant associations. When examined by group, no attachment-behavior problems links emerged in the clinical sample. In contrast, among community children, externalizing problems were associated with more avoidant and disorganized behaviors, and internalizing problems were associated with higher disorganization. These results highlight the need to better understand attachment-psychopathology associations within clinical samples, where difficulties in both domains are disproportionately represented, and to assess other potential determinants that may shape these associations.