Teacher-Child Relationship and Behavior Problem Trajectories in Elementary School

2010/04/19 by Erin E. O’Connor, Erin O’Connor, Eric Dearing +1 · 422 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Child care #Developmental psychology #Early Childhood Education and Development #Early childhood #Medicine #Parental Involvement in Education #Pediatrics #Prosocial behavior #Psychological intervention #Psychology #Quality (philosophy)

paper · doi:10.3102/0002831210365008

published in American Educational Research Journal 48(1), 120-162 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2010/04/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

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.

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