Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in Hampton/Sussex, New Brunswick - April 2003

Study Highlights

About 87.3% of the children's mothers and fathers had completed high school. Compared with provincial and national averages (88.9% and 86.3% completion rates respectively), mothers in Hampton/Sussex had relatively high levels of education (90.3% completion rate). For fathers, the completion rate of 84.3% is also above the provincial and national rates (81.6% and 83.5% respectively).

Almost 16.4% of families were headed by a single parent, less than both the provincial average of 18.4% and the national average of 16.6%.

Unemployment levels in Hampton/Sussex were lower than provincial and national averages for both mothers and fathers. About 68% of mothers were working outside the home, compared with about 58.2% provincially and 64% nationally. Similarly, 94.2% of men were working outside the home, compared with 83.5% provincially and 91% nationally. The most striking demographic characteristics associated with Hampton/Sussex families are the high levels of education and employment for both parents, and the relatively low prevalence of children living in low income families (20.8%), and families headed by a single parent (16.4%).

Results based on the Early Development Instrument, a measure derived from reports by children's kindergarten teachers, indicated that children in Hampton/Sussex fare especially well in communication skills and general knowledge. They also fared well in social competence. The weak areas were language and cognitive development, and emotional health and maturity.

Findings based on direct assessments of children's cognitive development and vocabulary indicated that the children in Hampton/Sussex scored at national norms in these domains.

The relationship of family background, family processes, and community factors from the NLSCY in relation to the EDI domain scores were studied for all seven 2001-02 UEY communities together.

The parents' level of education, whether the parents were working outside the home, whether the child was living in a two-parent or single parent family, social support, and use of community resources were the most important variables related to the cognitive domain.
Positive parenting¹ was by far the most important factor explaining the outcomes in the behavioural domain, followed by the mother's mental health, and community social support.
Whether the child was living in a two parent or single parent family, and whether the father was working outside the home were the most important variables influencing physical health and well-being.

While family background was particularly important in the cognitive domain, the role of positive parenting was an especially important predictor of behaviour problems.

In all seven 2001-02 UEY communities, use of educational, cultural and recreational resources is quite low, 3.4 on a 10.0 point scale. At 3.7 on this scale, Hampton/Sussex's use of resources is higher than the average. However, the availability of resources in Hampton/Sussex is relatively low compared with other communities: the availability of educational resources was 57.9%, cultural resources was 27.8% and recreational resources was 40.5% compared with 69.2%, 50.0%, and 53.7%, for the combined NLSCY data of the seven UEY communities.

For Hampton/Sussex, the total score out of 100 for family and community indicators was 72.5, 5.3 points above the average of 67.2 for the seven 2001-02 UEY communities. Its strengths were neighbourhood factors such as residential stability and safety, social support and capital, and use of resources, and family processes, in particular parental engagement. It received no low scores on indicators of family processes or community factors.

Despite good overall development, children in Hampton/Sussex would benefit from efforts to improve their language and cognitive development, and emotional health and maturity outcomes. Relatively few children in this community are cared for during the day in formal daycare settings. Increasing high quality daycare offerings, and making them affordable to low-income families, may be the best strategy for improving language skills and their emotional health and maturity.

¹ This "style" of parenting, called "authoritative" parenting, is characterized by parents monitoring their children's behaviour, being responsive to their needs, and encouraging independence with a democratic approach. It stands in contrast to "authoritarian" parenting, characterized by parents being highly controlling and somewhat harsh in their approach to discipline, and "permissive" parenting, characterized by parents being overly-indulgent and setting few limits for behaviour.

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