About Us > Staff & Faculty > Jenny Jenkins
Jenny Jenkins
Tel: (416) 978-0939
Email: jenny.jenkins@utoronto.ca
Website: http://jenkinslab.wordpress.com/
Dr. Jennifer Jenkins is Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development (AP&HD) in the University of Toronto and the Chair of the Atkinson Centre. She is a clinical and developmental psychologist. Her research has examined the influence of marital, parental and sibling relationships on developmental health. She studies why some children are more resilient than others when growing up in high-risk environments and is particularly interested in within family differences in development. She is the director, with Michael Boyle of Kids, Families, Places, a birth-cohort study, looking at the impact of neighbourhoods, families and childcare contexts on children’s developmental health. She is the author of three books, including Understanding Emotions.
Statement
I study the environmental stressors that have an impact on children’s development. Experiences in families are the most important stressors in children’s lives. In my research lab we have investigated stressors such as low parental education and poverty, marital conflict and separation, harshness in the parent-child relationship, siblings experiencing very different parental treatment from one another and parental psychiatric problems. Most problematic for children is when these environmental stresses occur together: although children can deal with single risks in their lives when these multiply their ability to maintain a healthy developmental trajectory is compromised. These stressors do not occur randomly to families. Societies that are less equal in how they apportion resources to families, have more negative child outcomes. When parents struggle with economic disadvantage, they provide less good parenting to their children. Cross-generational cycles of disadvantage are evident: parents who have experienced adversity in their own growing up are more likely to expose their children to the same adversities.
Brain development occurs within relationships and we now know a lot about the interactions that foster brain development. Our goal is to foster what has been called a mutually responsive orientation: encouraging cooperation between two people in a relationship so that they get inside one another’s minds, understand the other and foster one another’s goals. Behaviors that are critical are sensitive responding, teaching just above the child’s level of competence, internal state talk, reflecting on the other person’s experience. These behaviors have been shown to be important in parent-child, sibling, peer and teacher-child relationships.
It is important to note, though, that these stressors do not just happen to children. Children are born different and some are much more challenging to raise than others, because of how their brains develop. Such differences are influenced by genetic factors and pre and post natal experience. Differences in early temperaments, ability to relate to others and cognitive development contribute to the environmental experiences that subsequently influence children. For instance we have shown that having a child with a difficult temperament contributes to the marital conflict of parents and to parents treating the child more harshly than the child’s siblings. Children contribute to the environmental experiences that subsequently affect them.
Another issue that we investigate in our research is why some children in a family are resilient to family stressors while others are vulnerable. We have found that individual child characteristics (such as early emotion, attention and language skills, all of which are genetically influenced) are important in explaining why some siblings are more vulnerable to stressors in their family environments than others.
There are several important conclusions from this research program. In order to support the development of children we need to do a better job of supporting families.We can do this by reducing economic disadvantage in families and decreasing societal inequalities. We can also do it by increasing affordable and high-quality childcare so that parents are supported in working and raising young children. Finally we can do it through educating children and parents in the relationship behaviors that have been found to be critical in building a mutually responsive orientation.
Awards of graduate students under my supervision in 2012
Dillon Browne, Vanier Doctoral Fellowship, $150,000 over 3 years.
Sheri Madigan, PhD, Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. $140,000 over 2 years.
Mark Wade, CIHR Postdoctoral fellowship, $105,000 over 3 years.
Heather Prime, SSHRC Postdoctoral fellowship, $105,000 over 3 years.
Publications
Rasbash, J., Jenkins, J., O’Connor, T.G., Reiss, D. A, Tackett, J. (2011) Social Relations Model of Family Negativity and Positivity Using a Genetically-informative Sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 474–491.
Meunier JC, Bisceglia R, Jenkins JM. (2011) Differential parenting and children’s behavioral problems: Curvilinear associations and mother-father combined effects. Developmental Psychology.
Cheung, Goodman, Leckie, Jenkins (2011). Understanding Contextual Effects on Externalizing Behaviors in Children in Out-of-home Care: Influence of Workers and Foster Families. Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 2050-2060.
Van Lieshout, Cleverley, Georgiades, Jenkins (2011) Assessing the measurement invariance of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale across immigrant and non-immigrant women in the postpartum period. Archives of Women's Mental Health 14 (5), 413-423.
Jenkins, J, Rasbash, J., Gass, K. Dunn, J. (2012) The multilevel dynamics of sibling relationships: Influences over time. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53, 622–629.
Meunier JC, Wade M, Jenkins JM. (In press) Mother’s differential parenting and children’s behavioural outcomes: Exploring the moderating role of family and social context. Infant and Child Development, 2011:In press.
Browne DT, Meunier J-C, O’Connor TG, Jenkins JM. (2012) The Role of Parental Personality Traits in Differential Parenting. Journal of Family Psychology. In Press
Browne, D.T & Jenkins, J.M. (2012) Health across early childhood and socioeconomic status: examining the moderating effects of differential parenting Soc Sci Med., 74:1622-9.
Bisceglia, R. Jenkins, J. M., Wigg, K. G., O’Connor, T. G. Moran, G. Barr, C. L. (2012) In Press. Maternal Sensitivity, Early Adversity and the Arginine Vasopressin 1a Receptor Gene (AVPR1A) Arginine vasopressin 1a receptor gene and maternal behavior: evidence of association and moderation. Genes, Brain and Behavior, 11, 262–268.
Wade M, Prime H, Browne D, Jenkins JM. A Multilevel Perspective on School Readiness: Implications for Programs and Policy In: Boivin M, Bierman K, editors. Promoting School Readiness and Early Learning: The Implications of Developmental Research for Practice. New York: Guilford, In press.
Popular publication pieces (students working under supervision)
Heather Prime, Claire Caldwell, Jennifer Jenkins (2011) The Atkinson Bulletin #2 ~
Looking Through Your Baby’s Eyes
Wade M. & Ritts (2011) School readiness. The Atkinson Bulletin #1~
Talks
Jenkins (2011) Getting inside children’s minds: the parenting goal. Open Minds Across Canada, Mental Health Symposium, Hospital for Sick Children, October 1, 2011.
Jenkins (2011) Atkinson Centre: Overview of Purpose, Summer Institute, Toronto June 6, 2011.
Jenkins (2011) How do we provide children with the skills of collaboration? Workshop at the Summer Institute, Toronto June 6, 2011.
Jenkins, Astington, Moore, Cheung, Wade, Gass. The development of theory of mind understanding: Treating children as mental beings. Society for Research in Child Development,
Montreal, QC., April, 2011.
Kumar, A. & Jenkins, J. (March, 2011). Immigrant Status and Maternal Depression. Poster presented at 11th Annual Dean’s Graduate Students Research Conference, University of Toronto, Toronto, CA.
Meunier, J.C., Jenkins, J.M., Boyle, M., O’Connor, T.G., Kretschmer, T., Pike, A., Whiteman, S.D., Dotterer, A.M., McHale, S.M., & Kramer, L. « Differential parenting and risky family context », Symposium presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), Montreal, March 31, through April 2, 2011.
Meunier, J.C., & Jenkins, J.M, Boyle, M., O’Connor, T.G. « Indirect effects of contextual risk factors on children's behavior: The role of Maternal Differential Parenting » Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), Montreal, March 31, through April 2, 2011.
Prime, H., Perlman, M., Tackett, J., & Jenkins, J. (March, 2011). The Use of Thin-slicing as a Method of Coding Observational Data: A Comparison With Micro-coding. Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting, Montreal, QC.
Wade, M., Browne, D., Prime, H., & Jenkins, J. (March, 2011). Ecological Determinants of School Readiness: A Longitudinal Study. Poster presented at 11th Annual Dean’s Graduate Students Research Conference, University of Toronto, Toronto, CA
Grants
Project Title: Developmental Trajectories: A University of Toronto System-Wide Initiative to Improve Health, Learning and Society
Principal Applicants: Stephen Lye
Co-Applicants: Fleming, A., Corter, C., Jenkins, J., Mathews, S. Sokolowski, M.
Granting Agency: Connaught Global Challenge
Amount: $1,000,000
Start date: 7/2011
End date: 7/2013
Project Title: Strategies for Managing Child Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties in the Classroom: Sharing knowledge on effective teaching practices
Principal Applicants: Katreena Scott
Co-Applicants: Jenkins, Ducharme
Granting Agency: Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research
Amount: $21,530
Start date: June 2011
End date: July 2012