Over the last 20 years, the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions for the development of the well-being of children and adolescents and the moderation of high levels of anxiety and depression in this population has been largely demonstrated. Emphasis has been placed on the promotion of well-being and prevention of mental health problems in the school context in order to foster, through positive psychology, the cognitive and socio-emotional development of primary and secondary students, e.g., by strengthening positive relationships, positive emotions, character strengths, optimism, and hope. However, little is known about the impact of these interventions on young children. This systematic review aims at examining the effects of positive psychology interventions on the well-being of early childhood children (<6 years old), both in the preschool education context with educators or teachers and also in the family context with parents. Several electronic databases were searched, and the findings systematically reviewed and reported by the PRISMA guidelines. Very few studies met the inclusion criteria (n = 3), highlighting the need for further research in this area. Indeed, all of the selected studies demonstrated the importance of positive psychology interventions with young children to promote positive aspects of development, such as gratitude, positive emotions, life satisfaction, accomplishment, positive relationship, or self-esteem. Limitations in the field are discussed.

This study aimed to analyze and compare students’ school burnout levels in Switzerland and Italy. Previous research has confirmed that female and older students in particular are highly exposed to burnout risk. Nevertheless, few studies have observed this phenomenon through a cross-national comparison. Data on burnout were collected from a sample of 840 adolescents (Italian students = 497; Swiss students = 343) (Mage = 14.98; SD = 1.06; Female = 50%). Burnout was measured using the School Burnout Inventory, and cross-cultural measurement invariance was tested. The results showed that this burnout measure was equivalent between the Italian and Swiss samples. A multivariate analysis of variance was next conducted to investigate the effects of age, gender, and nationality. Results partially confirmed our hypotheses, showing the effect of age but not of gender in explaining burnout differences among students, and between and within-group variance. In particular, the burnout risk was found to be higher in late adolescence (age 16 to 18, M_exhaution = 2.73; M_cynicism = 2.99; M_Inadequacy = 3.14) than in mid-adolescence (age 13 to 15 M_exhaution = 2.95; M_cynicism = 3.43; M_Inadequacy = 3.54). Furthermore, Italian adolescents were more exhausted and cynical (M_exhaution = 2.99; M_cynicism = 3.26) than their Swiss peers (M_exhaution = 2.52; M_cynicism = 2.93) when controlling for age and gender. Findings suggest further investigation of the role played by educational and cultural values may be warranted.

Research findings: This study advances our understanding of early childhood teachers’ emotion socialization styles by innovatively exploring how these relate to teachers’ beliefs about emotions and levels of mind-mindedness, while controlling for age, level of education, teaching experience, and training in emotion education. Sixty female teachers (Mean age = 40.24 years; SD = 11.65 years) took part in the study. They completed two self-report questionnaires assessing their beliefs about emotion and their use of emotion-coaching versus emotion-dismissing socialization styles, respectively. We evaluated their mind-mindedness via a mind-minded description task. There were significant associations among the investigated variables. We also tested the hypothesis that a linear discriminant function including lower beliefs in instructing and modeling emotions, higher beliefs in protecting children from negative emotions, and lower level of MM predicted teachers’ membership in the high emotion-dismissing group. Practice or policy: Our findings suggest the need for including in teachers’ preservice education and continuing professional development more attention to teachers’ awareness of their ideas about and representation of children’s inner world, with a view to fostering an educational approach to emotion that relies more on an emotion-coaching style and less on an emotion-dismissing one.