The contemporary digital landscape for children is shaped by the metaverse, with platforms such as Roblox serving as major virtual communities and social economies. Many children in middle childhood encounter online interaction through such spaces, which can support creativity and learning but also pose risks of excessive engagement and behavioral dependency. The World Health Organization recognizes gaming disorder as a clinical concern, highlighting the importance of responsible digital habits. Religious parenting offers a protective framework by emphasizing moral values, discipline and balanced technology use. This chapter explores how faith-based parenting strategies contribute to healthy child development and digital well-being, integrating insights from education and psychology to guide responsible media engagement.
Some of the concerns that the surfacing of online gaming and digital interaction among children create are addiction, social isolation, and cognitive and emotional development. This chapter ponders on the ways in which religious ways of parenting can not only provide ways of raising children healthily but also reduce the risks associated with excessive gaming. It examines the significance of moral direction, habit, value-based education and empowering family climate in the acquisition of digital habits among children and development of self-regulation. The chapter sheds light on how moderate use of technology can be encouraged; how spirituality and ethical standards can be combined with the effective approaches to the utilization of digital communications. According to the case studies, the religiously-controlled interventions proved to be efficient in reducing the screen time, enhancing family communication and promoting prosocial behaviors, resilience, and well-being.
<p>The well-being of the child is a common criterion in many Polish normative regulations pertaining to different branches of law. It is both a tool for the law-making and the executive bodies, employed to direct the law-applying bodies towards ensuring full protection of the child. This article is focused on analysing interpretative judicial discretion with respect to the well-being of the child as manifested in the judicial decisions of the Supreme Court and in the judgements of the Supreme Administrative Court and Constitutional Tribunal. In the course of the research, the author undertakes to determine the essence of interpretative judicial discretion in cases predominantly focused on establishing the current and postulated situation of the child with a view to ensuring the most favourable ruling for the same.</p>
Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare provision and access in sub-Saharan Africa. Lockdowns and travel restrictions, coupled with fear of contracting the virus, disrupted services, especially for women’s and children’s health, derailing progress on sustainable development goals. This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine child immunisation coverage in Ethiopia and Kenya at both national and subnational levels. Methods Health management information systems data were used to estimate changes in child immunisation. Mean differences in coverage between the pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 were tested at a 5% significance level. Geospatial maps for coverage and differences between the two periods were created using aggregated proportions. Interrupted time series analyses provided counterfactual coverage assessments, assuming no COVID-19 impact. Results At the national level, minor short-term disruptions in coverage were observed following pandemic peaks in Kenya and Ethiopia, which were considered statistically insignificant. In Ethiopia, a subnational assessment reveals that full vaccination coverage remained relatively stable, with significant changes observed in the southeast regions of Somali and Dire Dawa. Specific vaccines such as BCG, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus 3 and polio (OPV3) showed considerable coverage changes in most regions except Oromia, Gambela and Sidama. Measles vaccine coverage experienced major changes across almost all regions of Ethiopia. In Kenya, full vaccination coverage experienced significant changes in eight counties, including Kisii, Turkana and Marsabit, with most Kenyan counties experiencing significant changes in measles vaccine coverage. Conclusion In conclusion, while routine immunisation services were mostly sustained with short-term disruptions at the national level in Ethiopia and Kenya, subnational levels experienced notable changes. The resilience of child immunisation was due to the implementation of community-based healthcare, mobile vaccinations and collaboration and partnerships for mass vaccination campaigns. The temporary disruptions were likely due to pandemic-related fears and supply chain restrictions.
Chifuniro Somanje Mankhwala, Chimwemwe Chifungo, Themba Mzembe et al.
Child undernutrition and stunting remain serious public health problems in Indonesia. According to the Health Belief Model, increasing mothers’ knowledge of stunting is fundamental to establishing accurate threat perceptions predictive of behavior change. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of factors related to maternal knowledge of stunting in Indonesia by addressing three questions: 1) How familiar with stunting are Indonesian mothers? 2) What antecedent factors do Indonesian mothers associate with stunting? and 3) What health effects do Indonesian mothers associate with stunting? A total of 3,150 mothers participated in structured face-to-face interviews. Study measures targeted four main variables. Mothers were asked: 1) Have you heard of stunting?; 2) Have you heard of shortness?; 3) What causes stunting/shortness?; and 4) What are the effects of stunting? Only 66 (2.1%) mothers reported having heard of, read about, or knew something about stunting. Approximately two-thirds of participants attributed stunting to hereditary factors. Interrupted growth (33.7%), idiocy (13.8%), and easy to get sick (11.8%) were identified as health effects of stunting. Results highlight the need for health promotion and education efforts focused on increasing basic knowledge of stunting, its causes, and its health effects among Indonesian mothers
Cougar Hall, Cudjoe Bennett, Benjamin Crookston et al.
Abstract Violence against children is an enormous global problem and one of the many adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that have long-term effects on children’s physical and psychological health. ACEs are more likely to occur in the context of poverty, multiplying family stressors and compounding consequences on child development. This chapter focuses on interpersonal violence within resource-constrained households and communities globally, including humanitarian settings. Family-based interventions have great potential in low-resource settings for prevention and reduction of violence, as well as promotion of protective factors to bolster resilience. Parenting and family-strengthening approaches have reduced harsh discipline and improved positive family interactions. This chapter reviews three specific examples: a parenting intervention in post-conflict Liberia, a family-strengthening approach for Burmese migrant families in Thailand, and a family therapy–based approach in Kenya. Future directions include development and evaluation of multilevel interventions that integrate family-strengthening approaches with multilevel poverty alleviation strategies.
Canada has welcomed over 100,000 Syrian refugees since 2015, many of whom have faced displacement-related challenges that shape their socio-emotional well-being. Refugee children, in particular, are at heightened risk for socio-emotional difficulties due to their developmental sensitivity to adversity, exposure to traumatic events, and resettlement stressors. Assessing children’s socio-emotional well-being often relies on both parent-reports and child self-reports; however, discrepancies between these reports commonly occur, and the factors influencing such discrepancies are not well understood, particularly in displaced populations. The present study examined predictors of parent-child discrepancies in reports of socio-emotional well-being and explored whether such discrepancies were associated with children’s learning outcomes. Participants were Syrian refugee children (N = 55, Mage = 14.42) who were resettled in Canada for an average of six years. Results revealed that children consistently self-reported more socio-emotional problems than their parents reported. Moreover, longer time resettled in Canada predicted greater parent-child discrepancies, suggesting that resettlement-related factors and acculturation influence parent-child discrepancies. However, child self-reports, but not parent-reports, showed limited external validity; while parent-child communication barriers may contribute to discrepancies, differences in how socio-emotional constructs are understood and reported by parents and children are important to consider. These findings underscore the importance of including multiple informants in socio-emotional well-being assessments and carefully considering cultural and contextual factors when designing assessments, specifically given the complex dynamics in displaced families. Future research is important to advance the literature to determine whether assessments of socio-emotional well-being should be adapted for specific populations, as suggested by the present findings.
Andrea De Bartolo, Yuying Huang, Hamza Qayumi et al.
This article explores the historical evolution, sociocultural significance, and contemporary relevance of the Boys’ Brigade (BB), one of the world’s oldest uniformed Christian youth organizations, with a specific focus on its introduction and development in Ghana. Founded in 1883 in Glasgow, Scotland, by Sir William Alexander Smith, the Boys’ Brigade was conceived to instil Christian values, discipline, and leadership in boys through a structured quasi-military framework. The movement rapidly expanded across the British Empire and found fertile ground in colonial Africa as a tool for both missionary work and moral formation. The study traces the formal introduction of the Boys’ Brigade to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1911 by Reverend Herman Noah Annan at the Christiansborg Presbyterian Church, Osu. Through a qualitative historical-sociological methodology, including archivalrecords, church documents, and scholarly literature, the article reconstructs the Brigade’s institutional growth and examines its role in youth socialization and civic education. It further analyses how the BB in Ghana indigenized its practices while maintaining its Christian ethos, contributing significantly to moral development, leadership training, and national cohesion. The paper also highlights the contemporary challenges and adaptations facing the organization in the 21st century. These include declining youth engagement, resource constraints, and the need for greater inclusivity and mental health awareness. Notable alumni such as former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia exemplify the BB’s enduring influence on Ghana’s civic and leadership landscape. Additionally, the article discusses comparable youth organizations and outlines recent global initiatives within the BB movement aimed at addressing gender equity and emotional wellbeing. The study concludes that while the Boys’ Brigade faces modern pressures, its foundational principles remain vital. With strategic reforms and context-sensitive innovations, the BB can continue to be a cornerstone of youth development in Ghana and beyond.
To be effective, adolescents' parents must have basic knowledge about what their children do, who they spend their time with, and what they care about. There is broad consensus that parental monitoring facilitates adolescent information sharing and that information sharing is the most important factor predicting parents' knowledge of their adolescents' lives (Liu et al. 2020). Nonetheless, under some circumstances, vicious cycles can develop in which adolescents react to parents' attempts to gain information by becoming more secretive and parents, in turn, respond to adolescents' secrecy by becoming more intrusive (Hawk et al. 2013, 2016). Despite developmentalists' fundamental interest in the study of change, most current conceptual models of monitoring are static. Specifically, theories have little to say about what would initiate change in stable family systems. This paper integrates what we have learned about parental monitoring, adolescent information sharing, and parents' knowledge in the last decades (e.g., Gingo 2024; Liu et al. 2020) with older models of parenting practice, style, and adolescents' willingness to be socialized (Cumsille et al. 2010; Darling and Steinberg 1993). It then incorporates insights from a model of monitoring borrowed from criminology (Hardie 2021a, 2022, 2024). This integrated model focuses attention on parents' goals and their ability to assess the success of their efforts as a mechanism driving change. A series of deterministic dynamic systems models illustrates predictions from this model about how parental monitoring and knowledge, adolescent information sharing, and outcomes unfold over time under different circumstances.
This study investigates pre-primary education practices in Bangladesh, focusing on pedagogical approaches and the use of teaching materials. Although the government has recently implemented a mandatory two-year pre-primary program with an updated curriculum, teaching materials, and teacher guidelines, classroom practices often do not fully reflect these intended goals. Using qualitative methods, including classroom observations in four schools and interviews with eight teachers, the study explores the realities of early childhood learning environments. Findings revealed considerable variation in classroom conditions, teaching methods, and management strategies. While some teachers implemented child-centered approaches such as role-playing, storytelling, and interactive activities, others relied on teacher-centered methods. The use of teaching materials was often inconsistent, limiting students’ opportunities for independent exploration and active engagement. These insights offer empirical evidence on pedagogy and resource use, guiding policymakers and educators in enhancing pre-primary education strategies and improving educational outcomes for young children in Bangladesh. Teacher’s World: Journal of Education and Research, 50(2), 77-91
