Experiences of mother-child dyads in children's transition to elementary school

I investigated children's and mothers' experiences during the child's transition to elementary school with three indicators: (i) children's social and academic development (i.e., school readiness and school adaptation), (ii) mother-child relationship (i.e., maternal involvement and emotional tone of the mother-child relationship), and (iii) maternal well-being (i.e., maternal distress and support received by mothers). The longitudinal analyses were conducted using data from the Early Childhood Developmental Ecologies in Turkey (ECDET) study. Children's and mothers' transition experiences were analyzed between two time points of the transition in Study 1 (n = 798): (i) before the child's transition, defined as at least three months before the child begins the first grade, and (ii) after the completion of the first grade. However, their experiences were analyzed for three time points of the transition for the subsample of participants (n = 208), who were also interviewed during the first grade. The findings of the analyses in Study 1 demonstrated a high continuity of the indicators but few cross-lagged effects between the indicators of children's and mothers' experiences during the transition to school across two time points of the transition. However, in Study 2, the effect of children's school readiness on their adaptation to school was mediated by the emotional tone of the mother-child relationship and maternal involvement during the first grade. These results highlight the policies and programs aiming to improve children's school readiness and maternal involvement during the transition.