OBJECTIVES To examine parent perception of child behaviour problems and parenting stress in Hong Kong, and to assess the extent to which they are related to socio-demographic factors and the availability of social support. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey by using a questionnaire. SETTING Maternal and Child Health Centres, Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS Parents of children aged 4 years who were reg...

AIM Maternal personality traits affect child dental behaviour and have a potential link with dental treatment methods. This study aims to evaluate which maternal personality traits affect child dental behaviour. MATERIALS AND METHODS Research was carried out upon 60 children aged between 3-12 years, who had been admitted to our clinic for tooth extraction. All children were evaluated by means...

BACKGROUND Socioeconomic inequalities are a key policy challenge. Studies to date have not taken a unified approach to assess how socioeconomic inequalities in health, behaviour and educational attainment change as children age. METHODS We examined maternal education inequalities in multiple offspring health, behavioural and educational outcomes and how these changed across childhood and adol...

This article is part of a Special Issue "Chemosignals and Reproduction". This paper reviews the role of chemosignals in the socio-sexual interactions of female mice, and reports two experiments testing the role of pup-derived chemosignals and the male sexual pheromone darcin in inducing and promoting maternal aggression. Female mice are attracted to urine-borne male pheromones. Volatile and non...

ÐIncreased activity of the immediate-early gene c-fos can be observed in many areas of the lactating rat brain after dams physically interact with pups and display maternal behaviour. These sites include the medial preoptic area, ventral bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and the ventrolateral caudal periaqueductal gray, each of which is critical for the normal performance of particular mater...

Extended maternal care is considered a prerequisite for the evolution of permanent family grouping and eusociality in invertebrates. In spiders, the essential evolutionary transitions to permanent sociality along this ‘subsocial route’ include the extension of care beyond hatching, the persistence of offspring groups to maturation and the elimination of premating dispersal. Subsocial Australian...

BACKGROUND This study examined bidirectional relationships between maternal feeding practices and child food responsiveness and satiety responsiveness from 2 to 5 years. METHODS Mothers (N = 207) reported their own feeding practices and child eating behaviours using validated questionnaires at child ages 2, 3.7, and 5 years. Cross-lagged analyses were conducted to test for bidirectional effec...