Introduction

It is widely acknowledged that the development of self-regulation, meaning “the ability of controlling or directing one’s attention, thoughts, emotions, and actions” (McClelland and Cameron 2012, p. 136), represents one of the hallmarks in early childhood. Self-regulatory abilities evolve early in life and improve rapidly during toddlerhood and preschool, with progress observable even beyond adolescence (Best and Miller 2010; Carlson 2005; Garon et al. 2008; Hendry et al. 2016; Hughes 2011; Kloo and Sodian 2017; Kochanska et al. 2000). There is a general consensus that self-regulatory and metacognitive skills, among them executive functions, are key requirements for successful problem-solving and adaptation to the environment (Zelazo et al. 1997). They are key predictors for academic achievement, social competences, and adjustment (Eisenberg et al. 2011; Liew 2012; Raaijmakers et al. 2008; Valiente et al. 2013), and even more important than socio-economic status (SES) or IQ in predicting adult’s physical health, wealth, life satisfaction, substance dependence, criminal offending outcomes, and parenting of the next generation more than 30 years later (Fergusson et al. 2013; Moffitt et al. 2011; Poulton et al. 2015). Hence, getting a deeper understanding of how these skills emerge and develop, as well as identifying factors that may influence and promote self-regulation development in early childhood, is fundamental.

Researchers who are interested in the development of self-regulation, however, are faced with several challenges. Apart from the diversity of measures (Duckworth and Kern 2011), one of the most demanding is the lack of conceptual clarity. Over the last decades, the development of self-regulation has been studied from a temperamental (effortful control; Rothbart 1989), neuropsychological (executive functions; Barkley 2001; Diamond 2006, 2013), affective (emotion regulation; Gross 2014), and motivational (self-control; Baumeister and Vohs 2007) perspective. As a consequence, self-regulation has become an umbrella term, making the consolidation of findings across fields difficult (Nigg 2017). Calls for and attempts to formulate an integrative framework have multiplied in recent years (Bridgett et al. 2013; Diamond 2013; Liew 2012; McClelland and Cameron 2012; Nigg 2017; Welsh and Peterson 2014; Zhou et al. 2012), yet no consensus has been reached.

In addition, while extensive research in the past years has focused on self-regulation, and especially executive functions (EF), in preschoolers aged between three and five years (Garon et al. 2008; Wiebe et al. 2008; Wiebe et al. 2011), still relatively little is known about the development of these skills in infancy and toddlerhood (Garon et al. 2008). One potential reason for this gap in the literature is the relative difficulty of testing infants and toddlers (Hughes and Ensor 2005; Mulder et al. 2014). Children at this young age generally have limited motor and language skills, as well as short attention spans. Hence, self-regulation measures designed for pre-schoolers tend to be too challenging for toddlers. In recent years, there is growing effort in developing age-appropriate self-regulation and EF tasks that allow assessing these skills in infancy and toddlerhood (Mulder et al. 2014; Neale et al. 2018; Pauen and Bechtel-Kuehne 2016).

Among the most commonly applied tasks in this age group are delay of gratification tasks. These require children to refrain from touching a reward in front of them, such as a wrapped gift, snack, or attractive toy, for a limited period of time (Kochanska et al. 1996; Vaughn et al. 1986). There is robust evidence that children successfully manage to delay the reward by two to three years of age (Kochanska et al. 2000; Mulder et al. 2014). In addition, many studies on self-regulation in early childhood rely on parent report, such as the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ) (Putnam et al. 2006) or the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions Preschool Version (BRIEF-P) (Gioia et al. 2003; Isquith et al. 2004). However, as Toplak et al. (2013) pointed out in a recent review comparing performance-based to rating-based measures of EF, these methods might capture different aspects of self-regulation (i.e., optimal vs. typical performance). Thus, they may provide distinct information on children’s regulatory abilities and should be treated complementary rather than interchangeably. This underscores the importance of collecting data using a multi-methodological approach to get a more thorough picture of young children’s self-regulatory abilities (Duckworth and Kern 2011). Furthermore, recent research suggests that micro-analytic observation represents a promising approach in order to explore the underlying behaviours and strategies that allow and enhance self-regulation in early childhood (Manfra et al. 2014).

With regard to the factors that contribute and support the development of self-regulation in the early years, it is assumed that children highly depend upon external support to regulate their internal states and behaviours, for instance, parents’ or preschool teachers’ co-regulation (Bernier et al. 2010; Kopp 1982).

This co-regulation behaviour, respectively parents’ or teachers’ attempts to modify children’s thoughts, behavior or emotions according to the expectations and values of a particular context (Colman et al. 2006; Kurki et al. 2016; Pauen 2016; Volet et al. 2009), allows children to gradually internalize the experienced co-regulatory strategies and to become more and more capable of regulating themselves. Internalization is considered to be the main mechanism that transforms co-regulation into self-regulation (Demetriou 2000).

Research with school aged children shows that parents may effectively support their child’s self-regulation by encouraging autonomy, providing an adequate level of challenge and responding contingently to the child’s instructional and emotional needs (Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread 2010). However, less is known about the contributions of parenting variables to children’s developing self-regulation and EF from infancy to preschool (Fay-Stammbach et al. 2014). In a recent meta-analysis, Valcan et al. (2017) systematically analysed the role of positive (i.e., responsivity, sensitivity), negative (i.e., intrusiveness, control), and cognitive (i.e., scaffolding, cognitive stimulation) parental behaviours in the development of EF in children aged 0 to 8 years. The authors found significant associations in the expected direction: while positive and cognitive parental behaviours predicted better EF, negative parenting practices were associated with lower EF. Notably, associations between cognitive parental behaviours and EF were significantly moderated by child age, with a stronger effect size in young children.

Early childhood thus represents a critical period during which parenting practices seem especially influential. Although research in this field has advanced over the last decade (Fay-Stammbach et al. 2014; Hughes 2011; Hughes and Devine 2019; Valcan et al. 2017), many questions remain unanswered. For instance, little is known on how consistent parents’ support is across context and time, or how parental beliefs shape the interplay of co- and self-regulation.

In addition, it is of major interest how children’s own characteristics contribute to individual differences in their self-regulation development. Besides biological risk factors, like preterm birth (Brydges et al. 2018; Mulder et al. 2009), school aged children’s motivational beliefs, for instance, whether they believe that human attributes are stable or malleable, and whether they show a mastery or performance orientation, have been shown to play an important role in their self-regulation development and achievement (Dweck 2006). Whether and how these beliefs interact with and influence kindergarten children’s self-regulation, however, has not been studied yet.

In order to answer these open questions, the development of self-regulation and EF in early childhood needs to be studied more thoroughly. A special emphasis should be put on infancy and the toddler and preschool years (Johansson et al. 2016), as well as environmental influences, such as parenting practices.

The contribution of this special issue for the study of self-regulation in early childhood

This special issue addresses important questions regarding the assessment and development of self-regulation, as well as influencing factors in early childhood (i.e. from infancy to preschool):

  1. (1)

    How can self-regulation be assessed in early childhood?

  2. (2)

    How can parents support the development of self-regulation at this age?

  3. (3)

    How do parent and child beliefs contribute to the development of self-regulation in young children?

Focusing on the first major question, Mulder et al. (2019) investigate how two- and three-year-old children manage to exert self-control. Precisely, they explore the dynamics of self-control strategies during delay of gratification using a newly developed micro-analytic coding scheme. Their findings indicate that the percentage of time that children look away and withhold their hands from the reward positively predicts task success. The authors interpret this as a sign for strategic behaviour present already in toddlerhood. They further show that teacher-rated (but not parent-rated) self-control relates to both the timing and co-occurrence of these behaviours.

Neale and Whitebread (2019) put a special emphasis on the second major question by analysing the stability of maternal scaffolding across toys and time with 12 to 24 month old infants and its relation to effortful control (delay of gratification tasks) at 24 months. Applying a micro-genetic, utterance-by-utterance coding approach, the authors distinguish three features of maternal scaffolding: propensity to scaffold, directiveness, and contingency. Their findings indicate stability over time and/or across toys for parents’ propensity to scaffold and their contingency, but little evidence of consistency in parents’ directiveness. In addition, maternal contingency at 12 months predicts child effortful control at 24 months.

Gärtner et al. (2018)Footnote 1 contribute especially to the second and third question with their work on the relation of parents’ self-efficacy beliefs and co-regulation behaviour to child inhibitory control in two-year-old toddlers. In their study, children between 24 to 36 months participate. Parents report on their positive and negative co-regulation behaviours, as well as their domain-specific and domain-general self-efficacy beliefs using questionnaires. Child inhibitory control is assessed six weeks later with a delay of gratification task as well as the BRIEF-P inhibition scale (parent rating). Results of multiple linear regression analyses reveal that parents’ negative (but not positive) co-regulation behaviours and domain-specific (but not domain-general) self-efficacy beliefs predict child inhibitory control (parent report) six weeks later. A mediation analysis indicates no indirect effect from parents’ domain-specific self-efficacy to child inhibitory control via parents’ negative co-regulation behaviour, but independent direct effects. No effects are found for the observation data of child inhibitory control (delay of gratification task), possibly due to a ceiling effect.

Gärtner et al. (2018) conclude that investigating the role of parenting beliefs, such as self-efficacy, may contribute further to the understanding of how parents effect children’s development of self-regulation. To identify mechanisms and factors that underlie and influence the interplay of parenting variables and child self-regulation is a key requisite in order to plan and design interventions that promote young children’s self-regulation development at an early stage.

The third question of this special issue is also targeted by Compagnoni et al. (2019). The authors report on the validation of a self-report instrument for assessing mindsets (i.e., trait beliefs and goal orientations) in kindergartners (five to seven years of age), and its relation to self-regulation measures (Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulder-task and teacher report). Their findings suggest that children’s trait beliefs and goal orientations represent two different but related beliefs that show differential effects on children’s EF and classroom behavioural self-regulation.

Claire Hughes (2019) and Nancy Perry (2019) discuss in their commentaries the commonalities and differences among the four papers, focusing on conceptual and measurement issues, as well as their empirical and theoretical contributions to the rising field of self-regulation research in early childhood.

Table 1 outlines the main aspects of the empirical contributions in this special issue. With regard to the assessment of self-regulation in early childhood (question 1), three papers apply a delay of gratification paradigm in order to measure child self-regulation in toddlerhood. It could be argued that this only captures a limited aspect of children’s self-regulation. However, in most of the reported studies in this special issue, behavioural observations were combined with parent and/or teacher report in order to gain a broader and more valid picture of young children’s self-regulatory skills (Duckworth and Kern 2011; Toplak et al. 2013). In addition, in Mulder et al.’ (2019) study, the authors developed and applied a micro-analytic coding scheme to further investigate the temporal and sequential characteristics and dynamics of children’s behaviour during these delay of gratification tasks. Hence, combining behavioural observation with parent or teacher report, as well as including macro- and micro-level coding and analyses, provides a promising venue for the study of self-regulation in early childhood.

Table 1 Overview of the main aspects of the studies in this special issue
Full size table

Neale and Whitebread (2019) and Gärtner et al. (2018) put a special emphasis on parents’ co-regulation practices and how these relate to toddler’s self-regulation (question 2). In order to analyse parents’ scaffolding behaviour in detail, Neale and Whitebread (2019) adapt a micro-genetic approach. These fine-grain analyses provide important information on the consistency of parental support and the findings highlight the role of parents’ contingent behaviour for toddlers’ self-regulation development. Micro-analytic coding thus constitutes a promising venue and may advance our understanding of the processes and dynamics that underlie co- and self-regulation in early childhood.

As Compagnoni et al. (2019) and Gärtner et al. (2018) show, child and parent beliefs are significantly related to child self-regulation (question 3). Although the findings do not allow causal inferences due to the predominantly cross-sectional designs of the two studies, promoting favourable beliefs in parents and children may nevertheless be important to foster self-regulation development at an early stage.

To conclude, this special issue gives new insights into the development and assessment of self- and co-regulation in early childhood by (1) building on cross-sectional and longitudinal research, (2) taking into account multiple perspectives (e.g. child, parent, preschool teachers), (3) and combining different conceptual and methodological approaches for studying the development of self-regulation and the interplay with co-regulation. As such, this special issue adds to the rising field of self-regulation research in early childhood and constitutes an important step towards an understanding of the interplay of self-regulation with child and parent characteristics in early childhood. Theoretical and practical implications regarding conceptual and methodological issues as well as opportunities to foster self- and co-regulation are discussed with a focus on early childhood.