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SALT LAKE CITY — Toddlers whose language develops quickly may also have the upper hand in managing anger, which could help them later on, researchers say.
Early language skills, according to a Pennsylvania State University study, help toddlers manage anger as a child grows. And as they reach their teenage years, those anger management skills may help them develop higher self-esteem, another study says.
Penn State conducted a longitudinal study of 120 children 18-months-old until they reached 48 months involving tasks that required the children to wait.
In one task, children were asked to wait while their mother finished "work" lasting several minutes before opening a gift. Of the 3-year-old children, those whose language developed quickly were better able to wait and ask for their mother's help during the task. At 4-years-old, those same children were less angry while waiting in a similar task.
In a second study also published in the most recent edition of Child Development, researchers at Missouri University looked at arguments between teenage siblings. The teens told researchers about their arguments, rating topics, frequency and how heated they became. The next year, researchers then looked at teens' mood, anxiety and self-esteem.
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If you want to be a good and effective parent, know this: Love is not enough!What they found, was that those angry arguments about equality and fairness were not harmless — rather, they could raise the chances of depression for the teens. Arguments about personal space predicted a higher occurrence of anxiety and low self-esteem.
"It may be possible to avoid sibling conflicts by recognizing that adolescents desire more privacy as they strive for greater independence," said Nicole Campione-Barr, assistant professor of psychological sciences and lead study author. "In addition, structured tradeoffs in chore duties and equal time with shared household items (like computer/video games) give siblings fewer opportunities to compare themselves unfavorably to one another."
Meantime, teens with higher self-esteem were less likely to argue a year later.
"These findings extend our knowledge of how the emotional adjustment of individual adolescents influences later sibling conflict and vice versa," Campione-Barr said.
