Parenting Understood

Welcome to Parenting Understood! A collaboration between a practitioner, Michelle Tangeman, and researcher, Erin O’Connor, which provides research and objective, evidence based information on parenting and child development allowing parents to become critical consumers of the plethora of information in media outlets. Each week we will delve into a central topic in parenting.

Please follow Michelle @thrivingtoddler and Erin @scientificmommy.

In this episode, we are thrilled to be joined by Dr. Ashleigh Collins, Dean of Academic Programs at Relay Graduate School Education. Dr. Collins discusses how to form a positive relationship with your child's teacher where you act as partners in scaffolding your child. She speaks to the special importance of keeping lines of communication open between parents and teachers, and provides ideas as to how to do this. Further, Dr. Collins speaks about the benefit of establishing connections with other parents and caregivers in your child's class. In addition, we discuss the state of education and teaching as related to the pandemic.

To learn more about Dr. Collins please visit her website and her Linkedin profile.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Meghan McCormick, Research Associate at MDRC and lead researcher on Boston’s Public Pre-Kindergarten Project. Dr McCormick has extensive research experience examining the roles of the home, school and neighborhood contexts on children’s development. Today she focuses on “constrained” vs “unconstrained” activities in which young children are involved at home and school, and the benefits of unconstrained activities. We also get into a great conversation with Meghan on how to choose a good preschool for your children. You can find Dr Meghan McCormick on Twitter @meghan_mccorm and https://www.mdrc.org/about/meghan-mccormick McCormick, M., Weiland, C., Hsueh, J., Pralica, M., Weissman, A. K., Moffett, L., Snow, C., & Sachs, J. (2021). Is skill type the key to the prek fadeout puzzle? Differential associations between enrollment in pre k and constrained and unconstrained skills across kindergarten. Child Development, 1-22.

We are delighted today to be joined by Dr. Dale Farran and to discuss the results from a recent study of hers and colleagues, which has followed for over a decade 2,990 low-income children in Tennessee who applied to free, public prekindergarten programs. Some of the children were admitted by lottery, and the others were not, creating a “real world” randomized, controlled trial, which is the gold standard in science to show causality. Recent results show that children enrolled in the public pre-k were scoring lower than their peers in the control group on state tests of Math, English and Science in sixth grade. Furthermore, at sixth grade, they were more likely to have experienced an expulsion or suspension than their peers not enrolled in a public pre-k. But as we discuss there is much nuance and complexity to this research that must be considered when considering the results and how they can inform policy and practice.

Dr. Dale Farran is an Emerita Professor at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Farran has been involved in research and intervention for high-risk children and youth for all of her professional career. She has conducted research at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center in Chapel Hill, N.C., and the Kamehameha Schools Early Education Project in Hawaii. Dr. Farran is the editor of two books dealing with risk and poverty, the author of more than 90 journal articles and book chapters, and a regular presenter at national conferences. Her recent research emphasis is on evaluating the effectiveness of alternative preschool curricula for preparing children from low-income families to transition successfully to school and longitudinal follow up for long term effects. Currently she is directing an evaluation of the State of Tennessee’s prekindergarten program. Most recently, she has been involved in identifying early childhood classroom practices most facilitative of children’s outcomes, including coaching tools to improve practice.

You can learn more about Dr. Farran and her work at:

https://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/bio/dale-farran

To learn more about the Parenting Understood email series on Pre-School please be sure to visit and join our mailing list at: https://parentingunderstood.com/

In this episode we speak with Dr. Keegan Tangeman about the use of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) to support children and adults in overcoming difficult thoughts and behaviors. We speak about the use of this type of therapy in general, as well as with suicidal adolescents. Further, we discuss how the principles of DBT can be used to support children not only in therapy but in their interactions with others.

Dr. Tangeman is a licensed, child and adolescent psychologist. He received his doctorate from Pepperdine University and completed his pre-doctoral internship at Morrison Child and Family Services, an APA-Accredited clinical internship in Portland, Oregon with rotations in community mental health and juvenile forensic settings. Dr. Tangeman completed two, APA-Accredited postdoctoral fellowships in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry program at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he specialized in child and adolescent trauma, child psychological assessment, as well as evidence-based treatments for children and adolescents. Dr. Tangeman developed and directed the Behavioral Assessment and Treatment clinic for disruptive behavior disorders at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and served the role of Clinical Project Director for a multi-site, randomized controlled trial of Dialectical Behavior Therapy with adolescents, affiliated with the University of Washington and the University of California at Los Angeles.

To learn more about Dr. Keegan visit https://www.drkeegan.com/drtangeman