Frequent Family Mobility and Child Self - Regulation

Abstract

Children’s self-regulation has been found to be an important predictor of later school success. This study examined relations between family mobility and children’s self-regulation in preschool. Using a diverse sample of 477 preschool children, results indicated that the number of moves a family made in the past five years was significantly related to lower self-regulation scores in children. The same pattern of results was found after controlling for child gender, age, and Head Start status. These results indicate that higher family mobility is associated with lower self-regulation skills in young children and document the importance of housing stability for children’s positive development.Keywords: Self - Regulation, Family Mobilit