Behaviour Outlook Norwegian Developmental Study (BONDS)

The BONDS study is a longitudinal study that aims to provide knowledge about the development of social competence, behavioural problems and academic functioning among children in Norway. 

Since 2006, researchers at NUBU have followed around 1,100 children and their families from the time the children were 6 months old until early adolescence.

The overall research focus is to study children’s developmental pathways to social competence, problem behaviour and academic functioning, and how this is related to:

• Temperament and biological conditions.

• Development in other important areas such as language and self-regulation.

• Family circumstances, including parents' education, stress and mental health, and family finances.

• Interaction with parents, siblings and friends.

• Important transitions in childhood related to kindergarten and starting school.

The researchers in the project have so far published almost 40 scientific articles in international journals and several Norwegian scientific articles. Among the topics they have focused on are:

Physical aggression

• Typical developmental pathways for physical aggression from 1 to 5 years, and factors that have an impact on this development related to the child themselves (gender and temperament), the family (siblings, finances and living conditions) and the parents (educational level, mental health, parenting style and relationship).
• How the early development of physical aggression is related to the child’s social, behavioural and academic functioning in early school age.

Self-regulation

• Importance of kindergarten, family background and parenting style for the development of self-regulation.
• Importance of early self-regulation for behavioural problems and academic functioning in school-age children.

Parent-child interaction

• The interaction of mothers and fathers with one-year-olds: similarities and differences.

Parenting styles among parents

• Importance of parenting styles – of both mothers and fathers – for behavioural problems and social skills in early school age.

Kindergarten

• Relationships between kindergarten/daycare use and child language development and physical aggression.

Socioeconomic inequality

• The importance of family socioeconomic status for children’s language development.
• Test of the Family Stress Model (FSM).
• Test of the Family Investment Model (FIM).

Parental stress

• Similarities and differences between fathers and mothers

Mental health of mothers and fathers

• Significance for the child’s later behavioural problems

During the planning of the project, the researchers identified several knowledge gaps in the literature. Firstly, there was a lack of knowledge about the earliest stages of development because much longitudinal developmental psychology research has started at around 3 to 4 years of age. With a growing focus on the importance of early prevention, it is crucial that we have knowledge about the earliest stages of development.

It is also necessary to have knowledge about children’s normal development and typical developmental paths for us to be able to say something about what represents deviant development (developmental psychopathology).

Another knowledge gap was that we know far less about the importance of fathers in children’s development than we do about mothers. Most of the research available in this field has focused on mothers and children, and has only collected information from the mother about the child’s development. Today’s fathers actively participate in their children’s lives, and greater emphasis is placed on the importance of fathers in children’s development. Therefore, it is both important and necessary to include fathers when we study how children develop.

Two other areas where there was a particular need for more knowledge were the importance of kindergartens for children’s well-being and functioning, and the development of externalised (acting out) behaviour among girls.

The BONDS study started in 2006 when the children were 6 months old, and data collection has continued until the youngest participating children were in 9th grade, in 2021.

The project has been partly funded by NUBU and has also received significant funding through various grants from the Research Council of Norway and the Ministry of Education and Research.

The families participating in the project come from five Norwegian municipalities: Drammen, Porsgrunn, Tinn, Bamble and Skien. They were recruited by public health nurses in connection with a 5-month check-up at the child health clinic. Both fathers and mothers were invited to participate. Approximately 1,150 children and families accepted.

Information about the children’s well-being and development has been collected from parents, kindergarten staff and teachers. Observations of parent–child interaction and testing of the children (language, self-regulation and motor skills) have also been carried out. The children themselves have also contributed information. In addition, register data has been obtained from Statistics Norway (SSB) on socioeconomic conditions (at the municipal level) and on results of national academic tests.

All data collection was conducted after written consent had been obtained from the parents, kindergarten staff and teachers (and in the final phase also from the children themselves).

Read more about the methods in the project here:

• BONDS (The Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental Study): A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Early Development of Social Competence and Behavior Problems
• A Flowchart of Participation and Collected Data Across 15 Years of The Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental Study (BONDS)

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  Ane Nærde

  Researcher

  Research department

  • E-mail: ane.narde@nubu.no

  • Phone: 97 71 39 23

For enquiries regarding the processing of personal data, please contact personvern@nubu.no