The long-term goal of this work is to conduct research that can inform policymakers and early care and education professionals about using natural environments as a tool to benefit children’s social-emotional development and well-being, which are key components of school readiness. The project goal is to test the associations between nature exposure and preschool children’s ER, including the potential influence of parental emotional well-being as a moderator of this association. In addition, this project aims to expand understanding of associations between children’s nature exposure and development beyond English-speaking samples. 

Specific aims include: Aim 1: Determine the associations between nature exposure, preschool children’s executive function, and preschool children’s emotion regulation. Aim 2: Determine whether nature exposure predicts children’s emotion regulation when controlling for factors known to predict emotion regulation (i.e., parents’ emotional wellbeing, parental emotion socialization, and children’s executive function). Aim 3: Focus recruitment on diverse populations, including BIPOC and Spanish-speaking participants to determine whether there are subgroup differences in associations between nature exposure and ER. (author abstract)