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Depression in early childhood is an underestimated health problem which is known for its severity, endurance, and negative impact on the quality of life of children and their families. The lack of appropriate assessment procedures hinders early identification and therefore the possibilities for intervention and prevention. This dissertation includes three studies about markers of depression in play behavior of young children and the possibilities to use play observation procedures as an assessment tool for early identification of depression in 3- to 6-year old children. In the first two studies, depressed and nondepressed preschoolers were observed in a standardized play procedure including solitary free play, interactive free play, and play narratives with an adult researcher. Depressed children showed less play, and particularly less symbolic play than non-depressed children, and also more fragmented play behavior. This was most visible in play narratives, where induction of sad emotions had a severe dampening effect on depressed children's symbolic play. The third and last study shows that preschool teachers can use a play observation questionnaire, based on the outcomes of the observational studies, to recognize these markers of depression in children's everyday play behavior in the classroom. The findings of these studies offer new insights in the relationship between play and depression and the emotion regulation problems that negatively affect depressed children's play.

A critique of current childcare systems, advocating for a transformative shift towards universal, publicly supported early childhood education and parenting leave.

Written by two leading experts in early childhood education, Early Childhood in the Anglosphere offers a unique comparison of early childhood education and care services and parenting leave across seven high-income Anglophone countries. Peter Moss and Linda Mitchell explore what these systems have in common, including the dominance of childcare services, widespread privatization and marketization, and weak parenting leave. They highlight the substantial failings of these systems and the causes and consequences of these failings. But this book is ultimately about hope, about how these failings might be made good through major changes. In other words, it is about transformation: Why transformation is both necessary and possible at this particular time? What transformation might look like? And how it might happen? Part of that transformation concerns the need for new policies and structures. Furthermore, it is about how the Anglosphere thinks about early childhood.

The authors call for a turn away from speaking of early childhood services as “childcare,” conceptualizing it in terms of business and marketized commodities. Instead, they should be envisaged as a public good with universal access for children, supported by well-paid, individual entitlements to parenting leave. Using examples from the Anglosphere and beyond, the book argues that a transformation of thinking, policies, and structures is desirable and doable.