This study analyzes the effects of support provided by teachers to mothers experiencing temporal, psychological, and economic difficulties by examining the written exchanges on meals in the parent / teacher notebook between a young working single mother, raising a two-month-old infant by herself, and a nursery teacher. On examining the contact notebook, we noticed that the teacher based her advice to the mother and the timing at which it was given on several factors, such as the mother's current employment status and her level of trust in the school. Additionally, for single mothers who have little time to interact with their children, the teacher decided to emphasize the children's meals, as the mother and children regularly ate together, which made their discussions easier. Through the information exchanged using the teacher-parent notebook, it is easier for the teacher to notify or provide feedback to the mother about her child's growth and development, and offer further advice and parental support on child-rearing and better communication. Thus, daily updates in the teacher–parent notebook support the single mother and help build a teacher-parent rapport.

  The study clarifies factors influencing childcare workers' parent-support ability. It selected and examined workers' at-home experience of raising children and incidents in professional childcare as probable factors.

  It developed a “Parental Support Ability Scale” to measure workers' parent-support ability. The scale is based on a study of 26 consultation techniques.

  We used the scale to hypothesize and examine a causal relationship model affecting workers' parent-support ability. We selected “parental identity” as a factor reflecting private childcare experience in addition to their sense of efficacy and “their years of career.”

  Results indicate “parental identity” significantly affects workers' sense of efficacy, which substantially impacts “their parent-support ability.” Indications are that parental experience is not directly linked to the parent-support ability but facilitates understanding children and parents, enhancing self-confidence in developing children. The study verifies wisdom that childcare and parental support are inseparable.

  Independence is an important developmental task in adolescence and has been claimed to consist of multiple factors such as “subjective independence,” “collaborative interpersonal relationships,” and “life management.” We hypothesized that cooking experiences in childhood would help foster independence in adolescence. An original questionnaire survey was administered to 178 university students (53 men and 125 women). Cluster analysis was conducted to classify eating environments of participants and their involvement in cooking during childhood. Scores for independence in adolescence were compared among these clusters using ANOVA. The cluster analysis yielded five clusters. Among them, two groups with high scores for involvement in cooking during childhood had high scores for “cooperative interpersonal relationships” and “life management” in adolescence. These results suggest that involvement in cooking in childhood has a positive influence on two factors of independence in adolescence, thus supporting the hypothesis.

  The parameters temperature, relative humidity (RH), reaction time, mixing ratio of dextran to chicken myofibrillar proteins (Mfs), and pH were examined using random-centroid optimization, resulting in 15 vertices. After evaluating individual vertices, the optimal preparatory conditions showing the highest solubility were determined as temperature, 53℃; RH, 65%; reaction time, 47.93 h, dextran to Mfs mixing ratio, 14.4 (w/w), and pH 8.5, resulting in a 56.4 ± 10.0% solubility of the Mfs in low ionic strength medium. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-poly-acrylamide gel electrophoresis of the proteins showed decreased mobility of myosin heavy chain, suggesting the formation of dextran-conjugated Mfs. The hydroxy radical scavenging capacity of the protein was 6.3 ± 0.2 μmol of gallic acid equivalent per gram of protein. Thus, these results indicate that dextran-glycation improves the solubility of chicken Mfs in low ionic strength medium, allowing the proteins to exhibit their antioxidant activity.