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Tiivistelmä - Referat – Abstract Objective of this thesis is to study the discussions that parents have with the daycare professionals, when the parents child has temperament features that make him/her active and impulsive. Early childhood education is an instance that is structured to support of the families. It bases heavily on interactions among the families. The objective is to create a environment that supports the children growth and development, so that a positive advancement can occur. Co-operation with the parents is necessary to secure that goal. Parental partnership term was first introduced in the 2000s and later in 2003 it was registered on to the early childhood education law. The definition says that the parents are the best experts of their own child and are overall responsible for the child upbringing. The personnel in early childhood education are the specialist in child development and education. The law obligates early childhood education personnel to maintain the parental partnership. Interactions between the early childhood education personnel and the parents is in key position when making sure that childrens growth environment is safe and favorable to learning and developing. Earlier studies have shown that parents feel that the discussions with the early childhood educations personnel are important and they will make conclusion off of them. Parents might even rehears their children according to the feedback that they get concerning their child. Positive feedback and interactions will also effect the child's relationships towards the early childhood education personnel positively. In this thesis we study does the inside traits of a child (temperament) affect the content of the discussions between early childhood education personnel and the parents. And what would the parents wish the discussions would improve. This study was accomplished by using an internet questionnaire. The participants were seeked from socialmedia (Facebook) groups. The study had 22 answers and twenty of them made it into the study. The study was concluded using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The study found that the quality (positive/negative) of the discussions between parents and daycare professionals influences in the parents negative experience of the discussions. The positive feedback that the parents got concerning their child was associated with the child's individual development and quality as well as the standard care that they are getting. The negative feedback that parents got concerning their child was associated with the child inner quality such as activity, concentration or the child's actions with in the group such as quarreling, hurting someone. Parents wished more constructive feedback and positivity in the discussionsere content with the current situation.

Objectives. Adolescence is a sensitive period during which the incidence of depression and anxiety symptoms increases. These disorders have been shown to significantly deteriorate functioning ability and the quality of life. In order to design supporting actions, it is important to investigate the factors affecting these disorders and their connections. The review presents research data concerning the connection between parenting and adolescents’ internalizing symptoms, and the meaning of emotion regulation in this connection. The aim is to examine whether emotion regulation mediates the connection between parenting and adolescents’ internalizing symptoms. Methods. Literary research was conducted in the PsychINFO-database using following key words: adolescent, parenting, emotion, emotion regulation, emotion dysregulation, internalizing, internalizing symptoms, internalizing problems, depression, anxiety. The bibliographies of the articles found in the literary research were perused and the most relevant articles were chosen. Finally, the studies with samples consisting of people too young for this review were excluded. The final number of the articles in the review was 13. The age of the examinees ranged from 10 to 33 years. Results and conclusions. There was coherent evidence showing that emotion regulation, parenting and adolescents’ internalizing symptoms are strongly linked to each other. Negative parenting and emotion regulation difficulties were clearly connected to increased internalizing symptoms. The research data differed in whether emotion regulation mediates the relationship between parenting and adolescents’ internalizing symptoms or whether there exists a different mechanism, such as the moderating effect. In addition, there were differences in the studies depending on whether depression and anxiety symptoms were measured separately or together as internalizing symptoms. According to the results, it seems that emotion regulation strategies and parenting factors relating to depression and anxiety are different. In the future it will be important to investigate different emotion regulation strategies and parenting factors in a more versatile manner, and to conduct more longitudinal studies instead of using the cross-sectional design. Moreover, it would be important to use mediation analysis in order to examine the mediating mechanism. The result concerning the connections between parenting, adolescents’ emotion regulation and internalizing symptoms seem to refer that it would be important to reduce harmful emotion regulation strategies and teach adaptive strategies in the prevention and intervention for anxiety and depression disorders. Additionally, it could be important to concentrate on parents’ emotion regulation and emotion socialization. Further studies on these types of interventions is needed.

Adolescents involved in child welfare have many developmental risk factors and are vulnerable to later adversities. Also sexual risk behavior is more common in this population. According to previous studies in normal populations we know that good parenting can protect adolescents from sexual risk behavior. This review aims to examine the influence of parenting on sexual risk behavior in adolescents in child welfare system and foster care. Additionally, one question is that are there differences in results between studies examining only adolescents in out-of-home care and studies involving youth in all parts of child welfare system. Parenting factors that were focused on in this review were closeness, monitoring, and communication on sex and dating. Studies were searched from PsycINFO database in October 2019. Search terms used were sexual risk behavior, monitoring, parenting, child welfare and foster care. Seven studies were found and they were published in the last 20 years. There was no difference in the prevalence of sexual risk behavior between all youth in child welfare system and those in foster care. Closeness was associated with less sexual risk behavior in early and mid-adolescence but not in late adolescence. Results regarding monitoring were mixed; in some studies it was associated with less sexual risk behavior but not in all studies or consistently in all types of sexual risk behavior. Also, the association differed by the placement status; for adolescents in foster care monitoring was associated with less sexual partners and for youth living in home with more sexual partners. Sexual and dating communication was associated with more sexual risk behavior, contrary to the expectations. According to the results, certain parenting factors can protect adolescents in child welfare system and foster care from sexual risk behavior, but the effect does not appear to be as clear as in normal population. There are few differences in the effect of parenting between adolescents in child welfare system and foster care and they may be explained by the quality of parenting. However, there are still only few studies on this topic and more information is needed in order to prevent and intervene in sexual risk behavior in child welfare population.

The objectives. The subject of this study was the digitalisation of teaching in the Finnish school system. The purpose of this thesis was to bring forward what parents perceive as the objective of the digitalisation of teaching and also how parents feel the digitalisation has contributed to teaching and learning. In addition, the challenges the parents recognise in connection with the school digitalisation was also an interest of this study. Methods. Two parents of elementary school students in Vantaa were interviewed for this thesis. The data collection was carried out as semi-structured theme interviews conducted by Helsinki University teacher education students in the spring 2015. This was a qualitative study, and the data was analysed using thematic and content analysis. Results and Conclusions. According to the results, the parents felt that the purpose of the digitalisation of schools was to diversify teaching, learn 21st century skills and to decrease expenditure. Parents saw the new digital learning environments and teaching methods as a means to strenghten the ownership of knowledge of the pupil. The new kind of knowledge ownership was seen to increase the pupils motivation. Digital technology was considered an inherent part of shool routines and the everyday life of pupils. Parents also identified challenges in the adoption of digital teaching practices, namely in pedagogical decisionmaking, establishing ground rules for digital methods and practices, furthering co-operation between school and parents and in ensuring adequate funding. The results of this thesis suggest that digitalisation versifies teaching methods and enhances the pupils motivation to learn more. Even so, in order for digitalisation to reach its full potential in elevating teaching and learning, securing adequate funding is important, but significant efforts from the educational decisionmaking and teachers individually are imperative.

This literature reviews goal was to study earlier studies of parental influence on children‘s physical activity. This subject has been studied a lot, variously and from different point of views. However this literature review concentrates on things that parents can do or deliver that have an influence of child physical activity. Because of that the subject confined to how par-ents example and attitudes influence children‘s physical activity. It`s very important to study this subject because of how important physical activity is for persons health and well-being. There is also stated, that physically active child will most likely grow up to be physically active adult. The thesis method was a descriptive literature review. Results and findings from earlier studies was used in this literature review. From studies became clear research information, the theories that subject was based on and what should study more about the subject. At the beginning described what physical activity means and which are the physical activity recommendations for children. Next are described concepts of socialization, primary socializa-tion and physical socialization. Studies that have been used in this literature review are based on these concepts and theories. This is because of parental influence is based on socialization process and especially primary socialization process. After describing the key concepts the literature review focuses on things that affects the chil-dren physical activity and especially the parental influence for on children physical activity. Lastly review focuses on the main subject which is dose parental example and attitudes have influence over child physical activity and also how they affect. Many different studies indicate that parental example and attitudes have great influence to children physical activity.

There is an intense debate about combining working life and family life going on in Finnish society. The subject is especially interesting at the moment because some recent social structural changes have blurred the boundary between work and family life. For example, the liberalization of the opening hours of the shops and markets poses new challenges for parents who are finding balancing their non-standard working hours with family life increasingly difficult. The aim of this Bachelor’s thesis is to find out how parents’ non-standard working hours are affecting the everyday life of families with children. The subject has been approached from different perspectives including individual, organization and society. The results this study has revealed are based on existing research materials and studies. The answers to the research questions were found in scientific articles, studies and literature related to this topic. Finna-portal, Google Scholar as well as the search engine of the City Centre Campus Library were mainly used to search articles and studies for this thesis. Comparing, studying and combining the results of previous studies have revealed that parents’ non-standard working hours have created a variety of new challenges for families with children. It turned out that the lack of regular family routines and the problems related to finding time for family members to spend with each other were considered especially demanding and stressful. Although the research results seem to focus mainly on factors which ignore the apparent complexity of family life and are thus perceived as not supporting family life, the research materials also revealed factors which have positive influences on everyday life of families with children. For example, there were some indicators which show that working non-standard hours may facilitate work-family balance. A day off in the middle of the week could sometimes be seen as a necessary and useful thing when running and organizing family life. Also, parents’ non-standard working hours seemed to offer more opportunities to fathers to share family and domestic responsibilities with women on an equal footing.

Early childhood education is seen increasingly as an investment to the future and the national economy. Highly educated personnel is considered as one of the mainstays for high quality early childhood education. The sufficiency and importance of the educational background of the personnel has been researched especially from the child’s point of view. The expertise and education of kindergarten personnel should come across with in the daily kindergarten experiences of both child and parent. The ideal of the shared pedagogical aims is formed in the mutual expertise regarding to the child. There is not much research from the parent’s perceptions on the importance of the educational backgrounds of the personnel. It is important that the parents experience that their children are satisfied. The subject of the research was to investigate parent’s perceptions on the importance of per-sonnel’s educational backgrounds in early childhood education. The research is describing the empirical and subjective experiences of the parents. The keywords of this research are high quality education, the educational backgrounds of the personnel, multiprofessional cooperation, the wanted features of the personnel and the cooperation between parents and per-sonnel. This research is qualitative, and the research material was collected by interviewing three pa-rents whose children are taking part in early childhood education. The interviews were semi-structured and phenomenographic data analysis was used to analyze the research material. Parents think there are teachers and carers in the kindergartens. Teacher’s university education is being noted, but parents describe their knowledge is tenuous. The division of work in kindergartens seems confusing, and the leadership in the multiprofessional teams is not clear for parents. The role of the kindergarten teacher is considered as the leader of the educational conversations (vasu-keskustelut) and background planning. Parents are concerned about the inadequacy of resources, the urgency and the excessive group sizes, and these overshadow the importance of education. Primarily the personnel is expected to have a warm and sensitive feel. According to parents, education does not guarantee the realization of high-quality early childhood education.

Goal. Lack of exposure to the Finnish language is a common problem for Finnish-speaking children living in the United States. These children having Finnish as their mother tongue, have to grow without a comprehensive exposure to Finnish. They also belong to a minority language group. To maintain and improve Finnish, children should have a need to use their language and opportunities to gain exposure to it. Often Finnish ends up being the weaker language and parents find keeping its level up difficult. The goal of this research is to find the challenges Finnish speaking parents are facing when maintaining or developing Finnish language in the U.S. In addition to this I will look into the reasons behind this and practical solutions to these problems. Methods. This research is a qualitative case study. The data consists of 17 answers for the questionnaire survey. The questionnaire survey was done during the summer of 2016. The respondents were Finnish speaking parents, living in the U.S., whose children are / were the age of 6 or below during their stay. The respondents’ spouse’s mother tongue was not taken into account during the analysis. The data of the study was analyzed through content analysis methods. Results and conclusion. The research shows that the biggest challenges for the parents in maintaining their children’s ability to speak Finnish was largely focused on their need to use Finnish, a lack of varied exposure, quality of language, availability of native speech therapy services, and the problems focusing on language characteristics. The parents made sure to attempt to maintain the children’s Finnish language and their children’s choice was to primarily use English. According to the data, the challenges the parents face are varied and depend commonly on what kind of Finnish language exposure the children have a chance to live in, and what kind of standards the parents have for maintaining the children’s mother tongue. The higher the parents’ standards are in maintaining their children’s level of Finnish language, the more they are willing to work even when they are facing problems with their children’s mother tongue.

Varhaiskasvatuskeskustelut ovat keskeinen osa varhaiskasvatuksen toimintaa. Varhaiskasvatuskeskustelu voidaan toteuttaa päiväkodin omissa tiloissa tai virtuaalisesti etäyhteydellä. Varhaiskasvatuskeskusteluja lähikontaktissa on tutkittu melko paljon. Etäyhteyden avulla pidettyjä varhaiskasvatuskeskusteluja on kuitenkin tutkittu hyvin vähän. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitetään, millaisia kokemuksia varhaiskasvatukseen osallistuvien lasten vanhemmilla oli vuonna 2020 Covid -19 pandemian aikana etänä pidetyistä varhaiskasvatuskeskusteluista. Tämä laadullinen tutkimus toteutettiin syksyn 2020 aikana. Se kohdistui pääkaupunkiseudun alueen vanhempiin, joilla oli kokemuksia varhaiskasvatuksessa etänä pidetystä varhaiskasvatuskeskustelusta. Tutkimusaineisto kerättiin puolistrukturoidun kyselylomakkeen avulla. Lisäksi vanhemmat kirjoittivat vapaasti omista kokemuksistaan. Tutkimuskysymyksenä on: 1. Millä tavoin vanhemmat kokivat kodin ja varhaiskasvatustoimijan välisen yhteistyön vuorovaikutuksen näkökulmasta etäyhteyksien avulla käydyssä varhaiskasvatuskeskustelussa? Vastaukset analysoitiin laadullista sisällönanalyysia käyttäen. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittivat, että vanhemmat kokivat etäyhteyden käytön pääosin positiivisena ja arkea helpottavana käytäntönä. Keskeisimmät kokemusta myönteiseksi edistävät tekijät olivat fyysisesti paikasta toiseen siirtymisen poissaolo sekä ajankäytön helpottuminen. Tutkimuksen perusteella voidaan todeta, että varhaiskasvatuskeskustelu etänä helpottaa vanhempien ajankäyttöön liittyviä haasteita. Etänä pidettäviä varahaiskasvatuskeskusteluja voidaan kehittää laadukkaammaksi esimerkiksi erilaisilla teknisillä ratkaisuilla.