Individual differences in effects of child care quality: The role of child affective self-regulation and gender

The current study investigated whether the relation between child care quality and children's socio-emotional behavior depended on children's affective self-regulation skills and gender. Participants were 545 children (Mage = 27 months) from 60 center-based child care centers in the Netherlands. Multi-level analyses showed that children with low affective self-regulation skills or who were male demonstrated less teacher-rated social competence when exposed to relatively low quality child care. In addition, children with low affective self-regulation skills also showed more social competence in the case of relatively high quality child care, suggesting mechanisms of differential susceptibility. No main effects of child care quality or interactions were found for teacher- and parent-rated externalizing behavior. These findings emphasize the importance of considering children's affective self-regulation skills and gender in understanding the effects of child care quality. High quality child care can be a means to strengthen children's social development.