This mixed‐methods study explored adolescents’ (n = 682) feelings of social connection in the time of the COVID‐19 pandemic and examined potential risk (fear of missing out, problematic smartphone use) and protective (parent/peer attachment, smartphone use) factors to social disconnection. Data were collected from two schools in Canada using an online survey with questionnaires and open‐ended questions. Three themes regarding adolescents’ feelings of social connection during the pandemic were identified through thematic content analysis: (1) feeling socially connected, (2) feeling socially disconnected, and (3) feeling socially indifferent. Moreover, regression analysis identified secure peer attachments as a protective factor against social disconnection in the time of the COVID‐19 pandemic, while fear of missing out was identified as an independent risk factor.

Background: Parental technoference, the interruption of parent-child interactions by technology, has been associated with negative outcomes in children’s media use. However, the magnitude of this relationship and its moderating factors remain unclear. Objective: This study aims to systematically examine the relationship between parental technoference and child problematic media use, as well as to identify moderating factors such as age, parental technoference group, study design, and type of problematic media use. Methods: Following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, a comprehensive literature search was conducted up to August 2024 across multiple databases, including Web of Science, EBSCO, ProQuest, PubMed, PsycINFO, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, using predefined search strings. A total of 53 studies with a total of 60,555 participants (mean age of 13.84, SD 1.18 years) were included. Inclusion criteria comprised studies involving children under the age of 22 years, assessing the association between parental technoference and child problematic media use with valid measures, and reporting necessary statistical data. Exclusion criteria included studies focusing on other child outcomes, having sample sizes <30, or being case reports or review papers. The risk of bias was assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed using R (version 4.2.1; R Foundation for Statistical Computing) with the meta and metafor packages to evaluate the association and conduct moderator analyses. Results: The meta-analysis identified a significant positive association between parental technoference and child problematic media use (r=0.296, 95% CI 0.259-0.331). Moderator analyses revealed that both parental technoference group (P<.001) and study design (P=.008) significantly influenced this relationship. Specifically, the association was stronger when both parents engaged in technoference compared to when only 1 parent did, and in cross-sectional studies compared to longitudinal studies. Age, gender, publication status, and type of problematic media use did not significantly moderate the relationship (all P>.05). Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides robust evidence of the association between parental technoference and child problematic media use. The findings highlight the need for family-based interventions and underscore the importance of longitudinal research to understand the temporal dynamics of this relationship better. Trial Registration: PROSPERO CRD42023471997; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=471997

In this study, we explored the longitudinal linkages among Chinese early adolescents’ unsociability, peer rejection, and loneliness. Participants were N = 445 primary school students in Shanghai, P.R. China followed over 3 years from Grades 6 and 7 to Grades 8 and 9. Measures of adolescents’ unsociability, peer rejection, and loneliness were obtained each year from a combination of self-reports and peer nominations. Among the results, (1) compared with the unidirectional and bidirectional models, the cross-lagged model was deemed the best fit for the data; (2) adolescent unsociability contributed to later increases in loneliness via a pathway through peer rejection; and (3) loneliness directly contributed to later increases in unsociability. Results are discussed in terms of the implications of unsociability for Chinese adolescents’ experience of peer rejection and subsequent loneliness.

Preschool teachers’ job burnout has many adverse effects on their career development; although some studies have examined the influencing factors of teachers’ burnout, less were explored from the perspective of individual factors. This study aimed to examine the relationship between mindfulness and job burnout of preschool teachers, and the mediating effects of emotional intelligence and coping style. A total of 394 preschool teachers in China filled in questionnaires measuring mindfulness, emotional intelligence, coping style, and job burnout. The findings suggested that: (1) mindfulness was negatively related to job burnout; (2) emotional intelligence and negative coping style played independent mediating effects between mindfulness and job burnout; and (3) emotional intelligence and positive coping style played a chain mediating effect between mindfulness and job burnout. The results revealed the mechanism of mindfulness on preschool teachers’ job burnout, which is of great significance for the psychological intervention of preschool teachers in the future.

This study aimed to examine the influence of parent-grandparent co-parenting on children’s problem behaviors and its potential mechanisms. Participants were 412 children aged 3 to 6 years from four kindergartens in Shanghai, China. Their mothers were asked to complete a series of questionnaires including the parent-grandparent co-parenting scale, parenting style scale, parent-child relationship scale, and their grandparents were asked to complete children’s behavior evaluation scale. Research Findings: The results showed that: (1) Supportive co-parenting was associated with less internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in preschool children, and unsupportive co-parenting was associated with more internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors; (2) Supportive parent-grandparent co-parenting was negatively associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors mainly through maternal authoritative parenting and mother-child conflict, and unsupportive parent-grandparent co-parenting was positively associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors mainly through maternal authoritarian parenting and mother-child conflict, or directly through mother-child conflict. Practice or Policy: These findings provide valuable information on the importance of parenting styles and parent-child relationships between parent-grandparent co-parenting and children’s problem behaviors in Chinese culture.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the measurement invariance of the School Connectedness Scale for Chinese, Canadian, and Tanzanian adolescents, and to explore the inter association between school connectedness and cyberbullying/cybervictimization. Participants included 3872 adolescents from urban settings in China ( N= 2053, M _age=16.36 years, SD = 1.14 years; 44.6% boys), Canada ( N = 642, M _age = 12.13 years, SD = 0.77 years; 50.1% boys), and Tanzania ( N = 1056 , M _age=15.87 years, SD = 2.03 years; 52.8% boys). Adolescents self-reported their cybervictimization and cyberbullying experiences, as well as their perceived school connectedness. Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis revealed an approximate measurement invariance of the scale across the three countries. Chinese students showed the lowest levels of school connectedness while Tanzanian students showed the highest. The findings of the multivariate multigroup regression analyses across the three countries revealed similar relationships between school connectedness and cyberbullying/cybervictimization, thus broadening our understanding of school connectedness and its relationship to cyberbullying/cybervictimization across these three different countries.