Children's Behavior and Well-Being

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Many of the adults affected by social policies implemented under devolution have children, so these policy changes may also affect children's lives. Clearly, the behaviors, resources, and well-being of adult family members help shape each child's environment. In turn, the family environment may ultimately affect performance in school, social and emotional adjustment, health, and other dimensions of child well-being (Child Trends 1999). Between 1997 and 1999, none of the indicators of well-being examined here changed for children in th United States as a whole, but interesting patterns emerged among children in different income groups. The changes tended to be positive for low-income children and negative for higher-income children, but a large gap between the well-being of lowand higher-income children persisted at the national level, with low-income children faring significantly worse on all measures.

This Snapshot presents findings on several parent-reported measures of child well-being from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) and compares these findings with data reported from the 1997 NSAF. These data are available for representative samples of the United States as well as for 13 states. Findings are discussed separately for adolescents and for younger children. In addition, this Snapshot compares the status of low-income children—those living in families with incomes below 200 percent of poverty in 1998—with that of higher-income children, whose family incomes exceeded 200 percent of poverty.

Ideally, child well-being should be measured using a broad array of indicators (Moore 1997). Although it was not possible to conduct individual assessments or personal interviews with children themselves, the NSAF incorporated a limited but carefully selected set of measures to provide a picture of child well-being during this period of policy devolution. Based on questions that parents answered about their children, the following measures were constructed:

• Engagement in school¹ (ages 6 to 17)
• Participation in at least one extracurricular activity in the past year² (ages 6 to 17)
• Levels of behavioral and emotional problems³ (ages 6 to 17)
• Skipping school once or more in the past year (ages 12 to 17 only)
• Expulsion or suspension from school in the past year (ages 12 to 17 only)
• Fair or poor child health⁴ (ages 0 to 17)

These measures tap crucial aspects of child well-being.5 For example, high engagement in school is associated with better school performance and postponed pregnancy (Connell, Spencer, and Aber 1994; Manlove 1998). Participation in extracurricular activities has been linked to improved academic performance, reduced rates of early dropout and criminal arrest, and lower risk of school-age motherhood (Eccles and Barber 1999; Mahoney 2000; Moore et al. 1998). Behavioral and emotional problems have been associated with lower literacy scores, persistent behavior problems, and maladjustment in later development (Ferdinand et al. 1999; Baydar, Brooks-Gunn, and Furstenburg 1993).

Different measures of well-being are appropriate for children of different ages. Accordingly, children ages 6 to 11 and adolescents ages 12 to 17 are discussed separately below.

Notes from this section

1 A general measure of school engagement, based on work by James Connell and Lisa Bridges, was derived from four questions in which parents were asked about the extent to which their children did schoolwork only when forced to, did just enough schoolwork to get by, always did homework, and cared about doing well in school (Ehrle and Moore 1999).

2 Participation in extracurricular activities was assessed on the basis of parents' responses to questions about children's involvement in lessons, clubs, sports, or other activities (Ehrle and Moore 1999).

3 A measure of behavioral and emotional problems was derived from a series of questions in which all parents were asked to report the extent to which, in the past month, their children did not get along with other kids, could not concentrate or pay attention for long, or were unhappy, sad, or depressed. Parents of 6- to 11-year-olds were also asked how often during the past month their children felt worthless or inferior; were nervous, high-strung, or tense; or acted too young for their age. Likewise, parents of 12- to 17-year-olds were additionally asked how often during the past month their children had trouble sleeping, lied or cheated, or did poorly at schoolwork (Ehrle and Moore 1999).

4 Parents were asked to classify their children as generally being in excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor health.

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