Abstract
The present study examined associations between the quality of teacher-child relationships and behavior problems among elementary school students using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a study of 1,364 children from birth through adolescence. There were two main findings. First, high-quality teacher-child relationships predicted low levels of externalizing behaviors. Second, high-quality relationships acted as protective factors, helping to prevent children with high levels of internalizing behaviors in early childhood from developing trajectories of long-term internalizing behavior problems. Teacher-child relationships may be proximal phenomena that can be targeted in interventions to help prevent behavior problems in middle childhood.
Keywords
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
