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Objectives. The aim of this qualitative research was to examine the meaningfulness of own time for single parents and the meaning it carries in their everyday life. The target was also to gather experience based knowledge about the life of single parents. Previous research on the single parents' life is not abundant and often time the perspective has been simply coping with the challenges of lone parenthood. Based on previous research a single parents' life is often barely survival from one day to the other. In this research the target was to expand the point of view beyond mere survival, bringing light to new aspects of living as a single parent. Methods. The material of the research consisted of thematic interviews. The interviews involved 10 single parents. The sources were all women, although gender was not a relevant criteria when selecting interviewees. The transcribed material of the thematic interviews was analysed applying qualitative theory directive content analysis. The unique characteristic of experience based knowledge presented itself strongly. Results and conclusions. The own time of single parents seemed to be after the children's bedtime or during the free weekends (without kids). During their own time the parents relaxed in their way of preference. Own time was considered important with respect to overall wellbeing. The material indicated that even though single parent's own time was held important and they most often wanted to have more of it, there was little effort made towards getting more own time.

The purpose of this study was to investigate talented children studying in a homeschool. The first research question describes home school parents’ definitions of talent. The second research question focuses on supporting a talented child in a homeschool. Previous research data shows that talent and homeschooling are related both as a reason for choosing a homeschool and as a high learning outcomes (Ray 2002, 2017) The research material was collected through a thematic interview. Home school parents (N=7) and their children (N=6) participated in the remote connected interview. Literated interviews were analyzed in the first research question by inductive content analysis and in the second research question by deductive content analysis question based on the catalysts of Gagnés (2004) Differentiated model of giftedness and talent. Talent was seen as differences in performance based on innate ability. Parents emphasized the importance of the environment and work alongside this perception. Talent was seen a little more multimodal than general. The talented child was defined by a high willingness to learn and various interests. The views are in line with previous research data and resembles Gagné’s (2004) definitions of the development of natural ability into talent by talent development process. Families saw homeschooling as a workable solution for educating a talented child. The parents emphasized the impact of the environment and individuality on learning. Homeschooling was seen as a motivating learning environment and supporting a child’s well-being. Parents felt it was important to appreciate the child’s talent and a lot of resources could be directed to support the child’s talent. The flexible timetable in homeschool increased free time or allowed the child to engage more intense hobbies. Homeschooling appears to be potential form of education form of education for a talented child but requires certain educational resources from the family.

The objectives: The number of children under three years of age with an immigrant back-ground has increased in early childhood education. Most children are in all-day childcare, which may cause that the Finnish language overtakes the native language of the child. For the child, his / her native language is also the language for feeling and thinking. Maintaining the native language is a precondition for the parent-child interaction. According to studies on the subject, strong skills in the native language also facilitate the learning of another language. The purpose of this study is to chart out how parents maintain and enrich the native language of their child in the new home country, how they value their own native language and what kind of guidance they have received in supporting bilingualism. My questions for this research are: How do parents maintain and enrich the native language of their child in their new home country? How important do the parents experience maintaining the native language of their child to be? What kind of guidance / information have the parents received in supporting the native language from the early childhood education personnel, from the school, and / or the child welfare clinic? Eight parents with an immigrant background, part of whom have lived in Finland already for a long period of time, were chosen to participate in this research. Methods: The research was carried out as a qualitative research. The method of the research was thematic interview. The data was analyzed by means of content analysis. Results and conclusions: As a rule, the parents spoke to their children their own native language, and preserving the native language was considered important. A general rule in the families was that at home only the native language was to be spoken. However, the parents experienced maintaining the native language as a challenge in the new home country. The parents had received very little support from the professional personnel to the means of maintaining the native language.

A child's emotional self-regulation skills affects clearly on how he/she behaves, reacts and builds his/hers understanding in different kinds of everyday activities. This research focuses on examining how children's emotional self-regulation skills occur in the everyday activities in Finnish day care and how it will effect on the children's social strategies. There were two research problems: (1) How a child's emotional self-regulation skills occur in the everyday activities in day care? And (2) How emotional self-regulation skills occur in children's social strategies? The theoretical relation of the emotional self-regulation skills and day care's every-day activities were supported by several self-regulation related international researches and theories. Child's Social Strategies were operated through Reunamo's (2007) different views of the relationships between perception and environmental change -theory. The method of this research was quantitative. The data used in this study was a part of Reunamo's (2010) Orientation project which included evaluation of the children's skills (n = 862), child observations (n = 18 364) and interviews (n = 805). 892 different children of the 47 different day cares and 17 child minders participated in the project. The instrument of the child's emotional self-regulation skills was based on teacher's likert scale evaluation of how a child recognizes his/her own feelings and how he/she can deal with them. The data was analyzed by using t-test, correlation, cross tabulation and chi-square. The results of the research brought out that children who had good emotional self-regulation skills had more often a social target on themselves than other children. Good self-regulation skills improved their ability to recognize other children's feelings and affected how they adapted to new situations with others, and to participate eagerly and with initiative to different activities. The poor skills of emotional self-regulation appeared in the child's tendency to use his/her influence and willpower towards other children. They were also strolling everywhere, seeking and waiting more often than other children. The children with poor emotional self-regulation skills didn't get involved in the day care activities as often. Nor did they use their imaginations to role play as other children did. Their social strategies were more often uncertain in social situations and they did not know how to react on them.

The aim of this study was to describe difficulties in kids self-regulation and define multiple things that cause it in day care interaction situations. The research questions are 1. How difficulties in self-regulation appear in interaction, 2. What are the causes that effect to self-regulation, and 3. What pedagogical methods are applied concerning self-regulation in day care groups in this research. Stress is closely related with self-regulation. When faced with a stimulus, people become alerted. That elevates stress level and calls for self regulation. Self-regulation is considered as dependent on circumstances and interaction. Difficulties in self-regulation often coexist with difficulties in peer relations. People have inborn abilities to regulate emotions and behavior, but self-regulation skills are also learned in interaction with others. Human is considered to be pro-social by birth, and to be favoring helping others. Interventions concerning self-regulation has been developed, to enhance pedagogical sensitivity among day care teachers. Pedagogical sensitivity reduces stress and helps children to self-regulate. Two day care groups from Helsinki participated in this research. Research groups had children with special needs integrated. The data was collected by videotaping and observing the interaction in normal daily activities in spring 2015, two days in a row. Interesting clips were chosen from the videotapes to be shown to day care teachers together with the interviews. In interviews, the teachers commented about the situations from the videoclips and answered open questions about self-regulation. Observations from the videotapes and transcribed interviews were analyzed according to methods of qualitative content analysis. According to research findings, difficulties in self-regulation appear in interaction with unique ways. Children seem to have their own individual ways to react in face of a stress and in need of self-regulation. Difficulties in self-regulation appeared in behavior merely described with three concepts: ”fight, flee or freeze”. Difficulties were either active and extraverted, or passive and introverted. The causes that effect self-regulation in this research were distinctive and dependent on the situation. Children had very different abilities to face day care interaction situations. Self-regulation was effected with multiple, also random causes, and because of that self-regulation cannot be seen linear from its causes and effects. Causes were classified as 1. abilities to regulate, 2. causes that strain and challenging interaction situations. These three causes can be found in all research situations that had self-regulation difficulties. Adult support, well-planned, structured day care environment and customs, that have been formed together, were the main causes that supported self-regulation in this research. In research day care groups self-regulation difficulties were prevented in many ways. Teachers had good knowledge and know-how about self-regulation. To support development of self-regulation in wider perspective knowledge should be increased. Children should have opportunities to train their self-regulation skills in their natural interaction situations, for example, with adult supported play, and interventions that enhance emotion-regulation and interaction skills.

This thesis examines children’s citizenship in recent empirical research in the field of child-hood studies. The thesis will examine the questions, themes and theoretical approaches that have framed the studies of children’s citizenship. Childhood studies is a multidisciplinary field and the research concerning children’s citizenship is embedded within multifaceted social and political contexts. Children’s relationship with the citizenship is unsettled. Children are being given many rights, responsibilities and possibilities to participate but at the same time they are excluded from citizenship. Children’s place as becoming citizens has been persistent in societies where especially political citizenship remains a field fully open only for adults. This under-standing frames the recent research of children’s citizenship. The study data consists of 17 research articles that are examining children’s citizenship through empirical data. These articles were reviewed and analysed applying narrative analysis. The study data shows that children’s citizenship is constructed in social, political and historical contexts. Political and legislative structures are the basis of children’s social participation. In in-stitutionalised settings, children’s participation is enabled in participatory activities. These par-ticipatory settings facilitate children’s agency and advocacy but also demonstrate some re-strictions. The approaches of lived citizenship have opened new interpretations of the ways that children enact citizenship. The studied articles show that citizenship is a concept that illumi-nates the aspects of the relationship between children and adults and may generate some under-standing of ethical encounters. Examining the marginal positions of citizenship is helpful in discussing children’s place in society. Citizenship as a concept unfolds the different aspects of inclusion and exclusion in society.

The aim of this study is to explore a composing process as a way to support children’s creative agency in Early Childhood Education (ECE) settings. The research assignment is to describe, theorize and analyze a composing process in ECE. The research questions are to find out how does the composing process appear in ECE and what factors in the teachers action support children’s creative agency. Based on earlier research, creative and musical activities enhance children’s over all growth, development and learning. The role of teachers is seen important when supporting children’s creative agency. Creative agency as a concept is still new, and earlier studies have raised a need to develop creative and musical activities in ECE. New research and methods are needed to develop abilities to support children’s creative agency. This teacher inquiry was implemented as a qualitative action research, in a group of 5-6-years old children, in an ECE center in Helsinki. Children participated in eight composing workshops that were recorded. The data consisted of seven recordings with 12 children participating in a composing process. The data was analysed as theory-driven content analyzes. The findings of this study show that a composing process can be seen as collaborative practice, where encouraging atmosphere and observing children’s initiatives are key elements. The factors that support children’s creative agency in the teachers action can be divided in two: factors concerning the interaction between the teacher and the children and factors concerning the planning, implementation and evaluation of the activities. Creative agency can be supported by breaking the authority between teacher and children and by planning and changing the activities based on children’s needs and hopes. Based on these results, teachers can support children’s creative agency with they’re own action and a composing process is one possibility to do so.

Objectives. Nowadays children live in an information filled, stressful, and constantly changing world. Therefore, effective coping skills should be emphasized in education of children to ensure their healthy and balanced development. The aim of The Fun Friends program is to offer tools to educational professionals to contribute to the mental wellbeing of children, for example, enhancing their self-regulation skills. The purpose of this study was to find out how early childhood education teachers experience implementing the Fun Friends program with children aged between four and six. Commitment and attitude of early childhood education teachers to Fun Friends program and teaching the social and emotional skills were surveyed by researching their experiences. In addition, the aim was to examine how the early childhood professionals benefited from introducing the program. Methods. Four early childhood education teachers were interviewed for this research. They worked in public day care centres from three different cities. The interviewees were trained for introducing the Fun Friends program and the training was carried out by Aseman Lapset ry. The research material was collected with semi-structured thematic interviews. The data was analysed by qualitative content analysis with theory guided approach. Results and conclusions. According to the research all the interviewees had an understanding of the significance of the social and emotional skills in different sectors in children's lives. The results showed the interviewees were committed to implementing the Fun Friends program as small group activities. Regardless, the active, positive, and planned actions, transferring the content outside the small group meetings was rather weak amongst the interviewees. The results indicated that the comprehensiveness in the practise of the skills should be emphasized even more in the training of the program. By doing this the content wouldn't be restricted only to the small group meetings organised once a week. The interviewees informed they also benefited from the Fun Friends program professionally. For example, they improved the knowledge of the children and the relationship between them. In addition, part of the interviewees felt their awareness of their role increased in teaching the social and emotional skills. This can be seen as a significant benefit that can be achieved by implementing the Fun Friends program. Because adults' role is unconditionally important when a child is practising the social and emotional skills with their still very underdeveloped brain.

Objectives. The aim of this study was to describe in which ways child’s participation is seen in round-the-clock daycare centres’ preschool action plans. Preschool action plans are documents supplementing preschool curriculum. The starting point of the study was to find out how child’s participation is supported within the frame of reference of preschool. The need to this kind of research rises from childrens’ right to be heard about matters that concern themselves. The rights of the child are based on the Constitution of Finland (1999) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). In preschool this means all the activities included in the child's preschool day. The study examined how child’s participation is generally demonstrated and, in particular, from the point of view of learning, in round-the-clock daycare centers’ preschool action plans. Previous studies point out that child’s participation is seen as multidimensional phenomenon. Methods. The research was initially data-oriented. The data of the research consisted of preschool action plans of all six round-the-clock daycare centres in Helsinki. These were public documents and they were collected from the daycare center's own web sites. The study is qualitative by nature and the data was analyzed by using content analysis. The material was treated as a single entity and the action plans were not compared. Results and Conclusions. According to the research results, all action plans described child's participation in many different ways. The action plans described hearing of the child and his or her initiatives, the methods for hearing, the atmosphere related to hearing, the child's ability to influence and the child's learning from the point of view of participation. From the research results it can be concluded that adults in pre-school groups are aware of the factors affecting child’s participation. The results confirm the earlier views that the phenomenon of participation is multidimensional. The results also show how adults in preschool are aware of the child's right to be heard, influence and participate in his or her own community.

Objectives. The goal of this thesis was to examine the assumptions of an inclusion that personnel in early childhood education have. The theoretical context of this study is the ecosystem model of inclusive early childhood education. Model is developed based on Urie Bronfenbrenner´s ecological systems theory. In the ecosystem model is described macro-, meso-, ecso- and microsystem factors that has to be considered when early chilhood ecucation is developed as more inclusive. Concepts are also explained. Methods. The material of this thesis was collected in research that clarified the state of special support in early childhood education. In this thesis was analysed one question´s answers of that research. Answers was given 572. From these answers was chosen five personnel groups whose answers was received more than 15. From these groups (early childhood special education teacher, early chilhood education teacher, childminder, nursery nurse and day care center manager) was chosen 15 answers each, based on discretionary sample. The answers that were chosen told about inclusion from works point of view. The answers were analysed and categorized in themes. Fenomenografi and dialogical theme-making was used as methods. Results and conclusions. Seven themes were made from the answers: the pedagogical solutions and tools that support inclusion, inclusion as a value, associates who support inclusive early childhood education, inclusion as a child´s right, inclusion as a child’s place, the challenges that inclusion has and enough education and know-how for inclusion. Themes were divided in between personnel groups. Inclusion as a value and inclusion as a child´s right were mentioned in every groups answers. The pedagogical solutions and tools that support inclusion was mentioned mostly by early childhood education teachers and early childhood special education teachers. Inclusion as a child´s place was mostly mentioned by early childhood special education teacher and day care center managers. Inclusion´s challenges were mentioned mostly by nursery nurses and day care center managers. Enough education and know-how for inclusion was mentioned by day care center managers, early childhood education teachers and nursery nurses. Associates who support inclusive early childhood education was written by early childhood special education teachers and early childhood education teachers.