The studies presented here explore the behaviour of adding sugar to beverages and especially milk which has already been observed in the Middle East, but only anecdotally in Lebanon. This dissertation investigated adding sugar behaviors to beverages in the diet of Lebanese children and from the perspectives of parents and children. This dissertation consists of a mixed methods study, a quantitative study and a systematic review of the literature. The aims of these three studies were to (1) explore parental and children reported behaviour of adding sugar to the beverages of children using a dietary recall sheet (2) identify significant predictors of the adding sugar behaviour by primary caregivers to beverages served to children using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), and (3) conduct a systematic review of the existing literature on the effectiveness of interventions aimed to reduce the intake of sugar sweetened beverages among children and adolescents. Five themes emerged from the qualitative component of the first study, namely: (1) parental practices of adding sugar to various types of beverages at home, (2) knowledge, attitude and belief related to adding sugar to beverages, (3) ingrained behaviour of adding sugar to beverages, (4) parental feeding practices and parental style, and (5) taste perception. In the quantitative study, a multiple linear regression showed that at time 1, perceived behavioural control predicted behaviour. However, at time 2, none of the TPB variables predicted the behaviour. The systematic review of existing literature showed that most of the interventions were effective in reducing the intake of sugar sweetened beverages even though the meta-analysis was not significant. Adding sugar behaviour to children’s beverages is a common practice by parents, and an inherited habit among low socioeconomic status Lebanese families. Findings of this dissertation inform the development of prevention interventions to reduce the behaviour of adding sugar to beverages of children in order to control the risk of chronic diseases associated with chronic high sugar intake.

Parents with young children often have concerns about some aspect of their parenting or about a feature of their child’s behaviour, and may seek support from family or local support services about this. Bangladeshi parents with young children living in the borough of Tower Hamlets, East London, were considered a vulnerable group that did not readily take up health services, such as services for under 5’s. This began to change with the advent of Sure Start and locally based Children’s Centres. As a result of clinical work in one Centre, the author was keen to explore what kinds of concerns might lead Bangladeshi parents to seek help and to whom or where they turned for such help. A purposive sample of Bangladeshi parents, mostly mothers, took part in one or more focus groups and unstructured interviews. The study took an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach, coupled with a psychoanalytic perspective, to illuminate and make sense of the respondents’ understanding of their lived experience, in relation to the phenomena in question. The use of Focus Groups in IPA research is a subject of current debate and some of the strengths and limitations of this approach are discussed. The study highlights the importance of allowing opportunities for parents from this community to have informal contexts to articulate the complexities of their lived experience, rather than simply their views. Children’s Centres are seen to play a key role in providing psychosocial support for parents, with particular significance for first time parents and immigrants. The author suggests that Children’s Centres function as an alternative ‘village’ for parents, especially mothers, who are trying to find ways of bringing together their experience of being raised in Bangladesh with their role as parents of a new generation in another country.

Previous research has suggested that dehydration may have a negative effect on some aspects of mood, cognitive performance and motor skills (Benton, 2011). Furthermore, a large proportion of children arrive at school in a dehydrated state (Baron, Courbebaisse, Lepicard, & Friedlander, 2015). The present work investigated whether supplementing children with water may, as a consequence of reducing dehydration, improve their cognitive performance and motor skills. In studies 1, 2, 3 and 5, it was found that tasks that predominantly tested motor skills, were improved in children who had a drink, compared to those who did not. Furthermore, study 3 showed that this effect was moderated by hydration status. One theoretical explanation for the poorer performance of dehydrated children is that they may lack the neurological resources to sustain their effort and thus performance does not improve over time. In support of this, these studies showed that, when re-hydrated, performance on these tasks improves to the level of non-dehydrated children. Study 2 showed that the number of errors increased in a StopSignal task in children that had high self-rated levels of thirst, compared to low levels: and hydration status did not moderate this effect. A possible explanation for the increased number of errors in children with high self-rated thirst is that the thirst sensation diverts attention away from the task, causing task performance to deteriorate. In study 4, it was observed that there was a large variation in intra-individual and inter-individual hydration scores throughout the day, which was not related to volume drank or levels of thirst. Further studies should use imaging techniques to study brain activity during dehydration and rehydration, and during periods of high thirst, to help to further elucidate the mechanism underlying the negative effect of dehydration on motor performance, and the effect of self-rated thirst on attention.

This portfolio of published work represents a discourse on Michael Fordham's model of development that extended Jung's theory to infancy and childhood. The papers were published over two decades and indicate how infant research, ideas from related fields and the author's own clinical and observational work have contributed to her understanding of development. The framework for her thinking has throughout been Fordham's model. In this essay the author contends that what she has learned from research and her own experience adds new contributions to the model, based on data for the most part not available to Fordham. The portfolio of papers is introduced by an essay comprising Part I. It begins with an account of the author's professional life and clinical experience pertinent to the study. Next there is a substantial section on Fordham ' s theoretical model and links he established with Kleinian and post-Kleinian thought. This exposition is followed by a section on the main sources for the author's work. Following this she proposes five areas that she considers to be her original contributions to the model: identifying and defining the features of massive surges of deintegration in the first year; identifying a period of primary self functioning; new considerations concerning the active participation of the infant in development; identifying precursors to projective and introjective identification, and symbol formation. Part II contains nine papers, virtually all of which are theoretical and include clinical work and infant research and observation. They are divided into three sections: 'Theory ', which are predominantly theoretical and ain1ed at making a theoretical point; 'Exp lications ', which aim to elucidate concepts and dynamics comprising the model; and 'Extensions', which are those papers explicitly or implicitly containing the author's new links and ideas that add form and content to the model.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the emotion regulation experience of young children, aged three to four, attending a nursery school of a Local Authority. This study aimed to reveal young children’s perspectives on emotion regulation and in particular on the way the children see adults playing a part in the children’s emotion regulation. It also aimed to explore ways of engaging young children and eliciting their views. A sample size of 6 participants together with a qualitative triangulated data collection method, offered by the Mosaic approach, revealed unique insights into children’s lived experiences. The data was analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Findings showed that young children view adults playing an important role in supporting their emotion regulation and that there are a number of ways children found adults can do that successfully. Findings also showed that adults can sometimes be seen as unhelpful by the children, particularly when they were misinterpreting the child’s emotions. Other children were seen as helpful in supporting the emotion regulation of fictional characters or children’s own. Occasionally children also reported dealing with emotions on their own. All methods of data collection generated interesting data but some were more prevalent in generating the key themes around the adults’ role. The thesis offers a critical review of the strengths and limitations of this research together with potential directions for future research. It concludes with implications for the profession and researchers’ reflections on the study.

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This thesis examined working memory (WM) and high-level cognition (HLC) in children. Previous research has shown that reducing maintenance opportunities in complex span tasks (CSTs) by restricting processing times can strengthen the WM-HLC relationship. This suggests that maintenance strategies are unimportant in the WM-HLC relationship. However, the restriction of processing times equally for all participants has not previously been addressed. This thesis assessed WM in 92 children aged seven to eight years of age using computer-paced numerical, verbal and visuospatial CSTs that titrated processing times individually for each child. Performance was compared to that in a condition where processing times were not restricted. Based on multi-component theories of WM, domain-specific and domain-general relationships with HLC (i.e. nonverbal reasoning, reading, mathematics) were examined. The effects of time constraints on the underlying mechanisms of each CST (storage, processing time, recall time, processing accuracy), their relationships with each other, and with HLC were investigated. In addition, the contributions of the broader executive abilities of inhibition and task-switching to the WM-HLC relationship were examined. Finally, the link between current WM abilities and mathematics performance two years later was also explored. Results showed that the two administration conditions accounted for shared and unique variance in HLC, suggesting measurement of different and similar cognitive abilities important in certain higher-order cognitive tasks. Examination of the underlying CST mechanisms showed that numerical WM best predicted concurrent HLC, with processing time replacing storage as a predictor when time constraints were introduced. Longitudinally, numerical, verbal and visuospatial WM predicted mathematics two years later. This identified WM capacity in seven to eight year olds important in mathematical ability at the ages of nine to ten years. Task-switching and inhibition did not predict HLC. Implications for multi-component and attention-based theories of WM, the importance of processing speeds and the role of maintenance strategy in the WM-HLC relationship are discussed.

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