Tongan and European children`s interactions at home in urban New Zealand

Three- and four-year-old children have a range of culturally specific opportunities to develop social skills at home. In culturally diverse environments such as New Zealand, interplay between ethnic group, caregivers' expectations, and children's home interactions is important because different cultural groups share common educational and health systems. In this exploratory study, we compared three and four-year-old children's interactions with adults and older siblings in Tongan (N = 5) and European (N = 5) families who had lived in urban New Zealand for one to five generations. Adults' ideas of appropriate behaviors for their young children provided the basis for interpreting quantitative data obtained from counts of selected verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and measures of children's active involvement in their interactions. Tongan children had similar patterns of interaction with adults and older siblings. European children were more verbal and tended to elicit more ongoing interactions with adults versus siblings. We also compared the interactions of Tongan and European children directly. European children's interactions with adults were more verbal than those of Tongan children. European children were more successful at achieving ongoing interactions with adults. These cultural differences reflected caregivers' ideas of child-appropriate behavior. While all children demonstrated social skills that were important in their respective homes and communities, European children had more opportunities to develop patterns of child–adult interaction that are rewarded in New Zealand schools.

Low health-related quality of life in school-aged children in Tonga, a lower-middle income country in the South Pacific

Background:
Ensuring a good life for all parts of the population, including children, is high on the public health agenda in most countries around the world. Information about children’s perception of their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and its socio-demographic distribution is, however, limited and almost exclusively reliant on data from Western higher income countries.

Objectives:
To investigate HRQoL in schoolchildren in Tonga, a lower income South Pacific Island country, and to compare this to HRQoL of children in other countries, including Tongan children living in New Zealand, a high-income country in the same region.

Design:
A cross-sectional study from Tonga addressing all secondary schoolchildren (11–18 years old) on the outer island of Vava’u and in three districts of the main island of Tongatapu (2,164 participants). A comparison group drawn from the literature comprised children in 18 higher income and one lower income country (Fiji). A specific New Zealand comparison group involved all children of Tongan descendent at six South Auckland secondary schools (830 participants). HRQoL was assessed by the self-report Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0.

Results:
HRQoL in Tonga was overall similar in girls and boys, but somewhat lower in children below 15 years of age. The children in Tonga experienced lower HRQoL than the children in all of the 19 comparison countries, with a large difference between children in Tonga and the higher income countries (Cohen’s d 1.0) and a small difference between Tonga and the lower income country Fiji (Cohen’s d 0.3). The children in Tonga also experienced lower HRQoL than Tongan children living in New Zealand (Cohen’s d 0.6).

Conclusion:
The results reveal worrisome low HRQoL in children in Tonga and point towards a potential general pattern of low HRQoL in children living in lower income countries, or, alternatively, in the South Pacific Island countries.